MultiMarkdown is an extended form of Markdown syntax, which is a text-to-HTML conversion syntax tool, that allows web writers to write easy to read and write plain text documents and then convert it into an HTML (or, XHTML) document. The design goal for Markdown syntax is to make the code as readable as possible by formatting out the tags and attributes.
MultiMarkdown as stated above, is a superset of Markdown in the way that it adds multiple syntax features such as tables, footnotes, citations and etc, along with the tool which can convert the document into various other formats such as – HTML, PDF (by way of LaTeX), OPML, or OpenDocument (specifically, Flat OpenDocument or ‘.fodt’, which can be converted further into RTF, Microsoft Word, or virtually any other word-processing format). MultiMarkdown was written in the form of a Perl script.
It simplifies the written code and makes it readable. It is different than Markdown because it can convert the document into various file formats along with offering the simplicity to write codes. Writing bold words in HTML vs in multi-markdown
- HTML:
This will make the <strong>'word'</strong> bold.
- MultiMarkdown-ed:
This will make the **word** bold.
Writing italic words in HTML vs in multi-markdown
- HTML:
This will make the <em>'word'</em> appear in italics.
- MultiMarkdown-ed:
This will make the *word* appear in italics.
Writing unordered lists in html vs in multi-markdown
- HTML:
<ul> <li>HTML is the skeleton</li> <li>CSS is the skin</li> </ul>
- MultiMarkdown-ed:
*HTML is the skeleton *CSS is the skin
Inserting hyperlinks in html vs in multi-markdown
- HTML:
<p> Read this page about MultiMarkdown, click <a href="https://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/index.html"> [here]</a>
- MultiMarkdown-ed:
Read this page about MultiMarkdown, click [here](https://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/index.html)
Installation: To Download MultiMarkdown, refer to this link
- MacOS: Just download the installer MultiMarkdown-Mac from this page. Unzip and run the installer.
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Windows: Install MMD on Windows by downloading MultiMarkdown-Windows installer from this page and run it.
- Click on the windows installer.
- Unzip the installer and click on the .exe installer file and proceed as normal steps “next”, accept the terms and conditions as well.
sudo apt install libtext-multimarkdown-perl
Usage through command line options:
- Conversion from text file to XHTML file
multimarkdown file.txt
- Conversion from text file to HTML file
multimarkdown file.txt>file.html
- Conversion from text file to LaTex file
multimarkdown -t latex file.txt
- Conversion from text file to OPML
multimarkdown -t opml file.txt
- Conversion from text file to OpenDocument file
multimarkdown -t opf file.txt
- Conversion from text file to Flat OpenDocument file
multimarkdown -t fopt file.txt
Create a MultiMarkdown document: This is achieved with the use of metadata – key, and value pairs. Special metadata can be included at the top of a MultiMarkdown document, which can then be used to define how MultiMarkdown will process the document after. This metadata could be anything such as title, author, citation, link, etc.
Syntax Rules:
- It must begin at the top of the document – no blank lines can precede it.
- It consists of two parts – the key and its value (just like Python Dictionaries).
- It must start with a letter or number, then the following characters can be anything – letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, or underscore characters.
- It should be in the form – ‘key’: ‘value’
- Case insensitive.
- After it’s finished, a blank line triggers and signals the beginning of the rest of the document.
- The HTML document must be complete so as to include the metadata, or it can be just a “snippet” if it does not include the metadata.
A “snippet” is just a section of HTML (or LaTeX) that doesn’t contain the header and body information. It can’t be compiled with LaTeX into a PDF without further commands.
MultiMarkdown Drag and Drop: Due to its difficult usage through command-line scripts, it became necessary to ease out the complication of its usage. The first solution to this problem is solved by creating drag and drop applications using Platypus. In this, one can drop a MultiMarkdown text file on the application icon, and they give out a .xhtml, .pdf, .rtf, or .tex file, as a result.