I am well aware of that; but it does have an in-built Markdown processor (more about that later). BBEdit has a lot of facilities that make the processing of text (any text) easy. Then when you look at the clippings feature you suddenly have the ability to add all the formatting syntax you will need. For example I have a clipping to bold selected text, the clipping looks like:
**#SELECT#**
and here’s another to centre an image in a document:
Now when you combine BBEdit’s toolset with a free app called ClipTools from MacMost you can add workflows to improve on the previous centre image clipping with this ClipTooks clip:
The combination of BBEdit and ClipTools really is a very good Markdown editor.
Now let me cover the “what’s not so good” bit. BBEdit’s Markdown Processor conforms to “mark” and John Grubber’s original spec. That means it does not support many of the Markdown syntax items you might need like tables. I’ve spoken to the BBEdit developer several times about supporting a newer Markdown version (GitHub, etc.) but he seems uninterested. I get around this issue by having a free app called One Markdown installed on my Mac.
I should add that all the clever clips you develop with ClipTools will work with One Markdown. One Markdown does not support the range of text manipulation features that you get with BBEdit.
So I hope that sparks some interest in MPU members trying BBEdit for something different.
BBEdit is great! It comes in handy for Markdown files, especially very large files or when I want to keep just the text from a selection of text and graphics that I’ve copied from a Safari web browser.
It can recognize a Markdown file (by its “.md” file extension, for example) or be told to treat a plain text file (.txt) as Markdown.
BBEdit’s syntax coloring can make the markup more readable. And BBEdit’s “Preview in …” command goes further in attractively rendering a Markdown file.
I’ve use many plain text editors over the years and each one has its strengths. I would never be without at least three or four on my Mac.
I have a beautiful Markdown editor in the NotePlan app that I use. BBEdit is still at the the top of the heap for standalone plain text editors, but when I want the strongest Markdown feature set, including handling of photos and other graphics, I reach for the Typora app.
You need to enable the different Markdown processor in Settings. First create an entry in Settings > Languages > Custom Settings by pressing the + button and choosing Markdown (if it’s not already been created, of course):
Then double click on the Markdown entry to get the custom dialogue. Click on the Markdown tab and use the Markdown processor dropdown to choose your preferred alternative to the default. I think it picks up the path automatically if you already have Pandoc or MultiMarkdown installed, but if it doesn’t then you can enter it manually.
That’s all I had to do (I think – I did this a couple of years ago…) and so far I’ve never had any problems with it.
There are reasons why I prefer to use another program most of the time for Markdown, but they’re cosmetic – I don’t like the way BBEdit gives you no control over the left margin, for example, so I find it a bit cramped. The syntax highlighting support is a little limited as well: no differentiation between *emphasis* and **bold**, for example.
But otherwise it’s an outstanding program – the only one I know more powerful is Emacs (and you have to do a lot of customisation to give Emacs the same power BBEdit delivers out of the box).
Again, sorry if I’ve misinterpreted what you were trying to say…
I bailed on bbedit when they forced an upgrade purchase to get functionality in a macos update. Not going to rent a text editor. I had already invested $120 over the years on upgrades and thought it was shady. No interest in free version.
I’ve tried BBEdit so many times and always go back to Sublime, the thing I’ve never clicked with and seems unchangeable is why it opens documents in a new window or creates new documents in a new window. I just want all of it in the same window
I think this is a setting. I have multiple documents open in a single window; the list of current docs is in the Sidebar. Opening a new document replaces the contents of the current window. UI navigate between open documents via the sidebar.
I looked at your BBEdit settings but MultiMarkdown (and Pandoc) is greyed-out in my copy of BBEdit (version 15.1.4 (15B64, Apple Silicon)). I’ve looked through the BBEdit manual but can’t find out how to add MultiMarkdown.
Your tip reduces the width of the Sidebar, but what I’m looking for is to increase the width of the left margin in the editor.
At the moment, unindented text starts at column zero, and because there’s no virtual space between the edge of the editor and column zero, it always appears cramped and fussy to me.
In Emacs, for example, which similarly has too small a left margin by default, you can override it. Compare the same text in BBEdit (left) and Emacs (right):
Have you installed MultiMarkdown and Pandoc on the system?
If you haven’t then try installing them with Homebrew – as far as I remember, that’s all you need to do to get them recognised (but I last did it a couple of years ago…)
To install Homebrew, follow the instructions on this page: https://brew.sh, then
