[TxMt] primer on markdown & textmate

[nachodog at mac.com]

There have been a lot of great responses to my request for a primer  
on markdown and template.  I'll try to synthesize some of the threads  
and ask a few new questions at the end of the post

Difficulties in Collaboration
=============================
I have the perception, perhaps a false one, that Textmate is  
primarily a program geared for software developers or web designers.   
All of my colleagues use Word for curriculum development, tests, and  
assignments.  Colleagues don't get it when I send a markdown  
formatted document to them.  While I use textmate for a variety of  
tasks, I stumped at how I can drop Word without retraining my  
colleagues.

 > > _On May 16, 2006, at 9:54 PM, Charilaos Skiadas wrote_:
 > Well, I would guess the middle ground for you would probably be  
RTF, which Word can read and incorporate. So you can keep your things  
in Markdown, and convert them to RTF before sending them.
 >
 > The problem here in essence is the "ubiquity" of Word, in that it  
is considered a "standard" in a way, while on the contrary it is a  
very proprietary format. There are a number of free, non-proprietary  
"standards" for transmitting information. The question is whether  
this is a battle you want to fight really. Let's take each thing at a  
time:
 >
 > 1. When someone sends you a Word file, you have the following  
options:
 > 	a. Suck it up and open it in Word and work with it.
 > 	b. You can ask them to send it as plain text.
 > 	c. I think TextEdit opens most Word files. Open it up, select the  
text and copy and paste to TextMate, then make necessary changes to  
make it abide to Markdown syntax.
 > 	d. Write/find a converter (http://naivist.net/tips/index.php/ 
2006/02/02/word_to_markdown_converter/)
 > 	e. Find someone potentially willing to write a converter, and  
then keep on pestering them until they do.
 >
 > In any case, you can direct them to this page:
 > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html


 > 2. When you want to send text to someone and make it readable from  
Word:
 > 	a. Send them a plain text document, and ask them to open it in  
Word :)
 > 	b. Write it in Markdown and convert it to rtf and send it to  
them. Then Word can be very happy with that.
 > 	c. Actually (gasp) write the thing in Word.
 > 	d. Send them a pdf file  (either from LaTeX or markdown) and see  
what they can do with it.
 > 	e. Send them an html file, and ask them to ask Word to convert  
it. Surely Word should be able to do that :)
 >
 > Optionally, have very long discussions with them about what their  
problems are with the Markdown format. It is supposed to be  
intuitively clear and readable, what exactly is their problem?
 >
 > I guess the real question is how much you want to accommodate them  
and their workflow against a more open standard and your workflow.  
Personally, I would try to retrain your colleagues into using a  
format that is more interchangeable, like LaTeX. But I might have too  
much of a tendency to think I am always right :)
 >

On Dumping Word
===============
On May 17, 2006, at 8:53 AM, Mark Eli Kalderon wrote:

I have dumped Word and wordprocessing more generally and now work  
entirely in TextMate. The MultiMarkdown facility of the Markdown  
bundle is especially useful since you can generate, xhtml, LaTeX,  
PDF, and RTF (if you need to share docs to be edited by others who  
wordprocess) all from a Markdown. In addition I write slides in  
Beamer. So I have all my needs met. Been doing this for awhile.


Workflow:  Making a bulleted list in textmate
==============================================
I was concerned that having to type out all of the markdown syntax  
was burdensome.

 > On May 16, 2006, at 9:54 PM, Charilaos Skiadas wrote:
 >
 > If I undestand correctly, you want to go from:
 >
 > one
 > two
 > three
 >
 > to
 >
 > * one
 > * two
 > * three
 >
 > In that case, select the first two lines, press option followed by  
star and space. Or better, create a command with code the single line:
 >
 > sed 's/\(.*\)/* \1/'
 >
 > with input set to selected text, fall-back line, and output set to  
replace selected text.
 > With this command, you'll want to select all three lines.

In addition, On May 16, 2006, at 10:07 PM, Brad Choate wrote:

 >There's also the excellent Outlines bundle. Select those lines and  
hit Ctrl+Cmd+O (letter o) and select "Tabs to Markdown". In this  
case, it will simply add '* ' >in front of each line.
 >

Getting Markdown into other formats via textmate
================================================

LaTex
-----
In a private email exchange with Haris, I asked if LaTex is a good  
solution for getting markdown documents to print.  Haris gave me  
permission to post his response:
 > Yes i would strongly recommend LaTeX. Of course, being a  
mathematician I practically live by it, but in general it is an  
excellent typesetting software: Its *job* is to produce documents for  
printing, and it does an excellent work with bibliography, cross- 
referencing, indexes etc. If you are writing anything more than a  
page or two, the I would do it in LaTeX. Plus, with the beamer  
document class, you can design some pretty cool presentations (http:// 
latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/).
 >
 > And I am pretty sure there is a MultiMarkdown to LaTeX converter  
that you can use.
 >
 > I personally use LaTeX for all my (modest) class needs. You can  
find examples of handouts and tests here:
 > http://www.iwu.edu/~cskiadas/currentCourse/2006Math161/index.html
 >
 > If you do want to look into LaTeX, there are of course many  
sources but here is mine:
 > http://www.iwu.edu/~cskiadas/latexTutorials/latexInfo.html
 >

RTF
---
* What are the best ways to go from markdown to RTF?

PDF
---
* What is the quickest/easiest way to go from Markdown to PDF?