Markdown, the lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents, is finally getting support in Google Docs.
Thank the Maker.
Google Docs was born from the conjoined features of a series of software company acquisitions (Writely, DocVerse, and QuickOffice), plus the remains of Google Wave, smooshed together into Drive by 2012. By that point, Markdown, a project of web writer John Gruber with input from data activist Aaron Swartz, had been solidified and gathering steam for about eight years. Then, for another decade or so, writing in Markdown and writing in Google Docs were two different things, joined together only through browser extensions or onerous import/export tools. An uncountable number of cloud-syncing, collaboration-friendly but Markdown-focused writing tools flourished in that chasm.
In early 2022, the first connecting plank was placed: Docs could “Automatically detect Markdown,” if you enabled it. This expanded the cursory support for numbered and unordered lists and checkboxes to the big items, like headlines, italics, bold, strikethrough, and links. You could write in Markdown in Docs, but you could not paste, nor could you import or export between Docs and Markdown styling.
Now, or at some point in the next 14 days, real, actual Markdown work can be done in Google Docs. Docs can convert Markdown text to its equivalent Docs formatting on paste or when imported as a file, and it can export to Markdown from the copy menu or as a file. Google’s blog post notes that this is “particularly useful for technical content writers as they can now convert Docs content to/from Markdown,” so as to use Google’s always-on syncing and collaboration in the interim stages.
Are you as excited about this as I am?
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