Make Markdown Even Easier with Markdown Services

Multimarkdown service tools

In yesterday’s post, I talked about how using MultiMarkdown can help speed up your workflow, especially when writing for the Web.

To make using Markdown even easier, Brett Terpstra (developer of the popular Overcast podcasting app) has created a set of services that you can implement in your workflow. Each of them is preceded by the letters “md” to keep them grouped in your Services menu.

The following Services are included:

md – Code – Make Code Block
md – Convert – HTML to Clipboard
md – Convert – HTML to Markdown
md – Convert – MultiMarkdown to HTML
md – Convert – MultiMarkdown to RTF
md – Emphasis – Bold
md – Emphasis – Italics
md – Footnotes – Convert Inline Format
md – Footnotes – Make IDs Unique
md – Indentation – Indent
md – Indentation – Outdent
md – Links – Auto-link web search
md – Links – Auto-link Wikipedia
md – Links – Chrome Tabs
md – Links – Clipboard
md – Links – Flip Link Style
md – Links – New Link
md – Links – Safari Tabs
md – Links – Self-Link URLs
md – Links – To References
md – Lists – Bullet List
md – Lists – Fix Numbered List
md – Lists – Numbered List
md – Paragraphs – Blockquote
md – Paragraphs – Compress Empty Lines
md – Paragraphs – Preserve Line Breaks
md – Paragraphs – Unwrap
md – Tables – Cleanup
md – Wrap – Angle Brackets
md – Wrap – Parenthesis
md – Wrap – Square Brackets

Brett provides a detailed description of each of these services on his website. You can also download the services package from there as well.

To install the services., simply drag the Services you want to use into [user home folder]/Library/Services. You will have to enable the Services manually in the Keyboard Shortcuts preference pane of System Preferences ( ➪ System Preferences, click the Keyboard icon, click the Shortcuts tab and then click Services in the left pane. Click the check the box to the left of each service that you wish to enable.

Click the services box

To make my workflow even easier, I created a keyboard shortcut to the MultiMarkdown to HTML service (md – Convert – MultiMarkdown to HTML). To do s0, click in the blank, white area to the right of the Service and then click Add Shortcut when it appears, as shown below. Then, type in a combination of modifier keys (Command, Shift, Control, Option) and a letter or number. For instance, I used Alt + Shift + Command + M to activate the Convert MultiMarkdown to HTML services (don’t forget to select all of the text in your document first before launching the service).

Type in keystroke combination