• 1. Subject of this article.
• 2. Python source analysis.
• 3. The full source code in Python.

1. Subject of this article.

The goal is to generate a simple program to collect the text contained in various PDFs generated directly from word processing programs and insert the various fragments into a single document in Markdown language by separating the fragments with second-level headings corresponding to the name of the source documents.

How are four generalist editors, i.e., designed to be used with a wide range of programming languages and text files, performing when writing documents in Markdown language? This is the subject of this article based on my personal experiences in using Vim, Emacs, Sublime Text 4 and Visual Studio Code both directly and with extensions dedicated to the above mentioned markup language.

• 1. Introduction.
• 2. Vim and Markdown.
  • 2.1. Vim without plugins.
  • 2.2. Vim with the plugin vim-markdown.
  • 2.3. Vim with the plugin UltiSnips.
  • 2.4. Vim and Markdown preview.
• 3. Emacs and Markdown.
  • 3.1. Emacs without plugins.
  • 3.2. Emacs with markdown-mode.
  • 3.3. Emacs and preview in Markdown.
• 4. Sublime Text 4 and Markdown.
  • 4.1. Sublime Text 4 without plugins.
  • 4.2. Sublime Text 4 with the plugin “MarkdownEditing”.
  • 4.3. Sublime Text 4 and preview in Markdown.
• 5. Visual Studio Code and Markdown.
  • 5.1. VSCode without plugins
  • 5.2. VSCode with the plugin “Markdown All in One”.
• 6. In summary.

1. Introduction.

Markdown is a simple markup language that is within anyone’s reach, compatible with HTML, and allows very elegant, well-formatted text to be written for both web and print publication.

Preamble

Vim is an excellent editor for Markdown, both for its own “native” features and for the possibility of adding specific functions via “plugins.”

Previewing documents requires, unless you use the “manual” solution mentioned at the end of this article, using a dedicated “plugin.”

Until a few years ago, my favorite was “iamcco/markdown-preview.vim” because it provided a true real-time live effect while typing text, even before periodic saving.

Unfortunately, that project has been abandoned since February 2020.

Does it make sense to talk about Org Mode instead of Markdown?

Why should I use Org-Mode to write articles to be published network in Markdown format?

Wouldn’t it be more convenient to write the articles directly in Markdown?

The question is more than justified and the answer is not obvious.

First, let me remind you that Org-Mode is a mode of GNU/Emacs. While there are various plugins for other editors, including Vim, none of them can match the outstanding efficiency of the original system.

Abstract

Use Mozilla Firefox as a Markdown documents viewer written on Linux Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch, with mention of MS Windows and macOS.

Mozilla Firefox and the Markdown layout

Mozilla Firefox, one of the best Internet browsers, does not natively read documents written in Markdown.

If you try to open a document written in Markdown, the browser asks whether it should save it locally or open it with an application among those offered by the operating system. But it doesn’t render the document.

Objective of this post

The objective of this post is to get a correctly formatted link in Markdown by merging in a single command a fragment of text and an Internet address previously saved in the Vim clipboard.

Of course I assume that everybody that’s reading this post knows how to create a well formatted link in Markdown, i.e. text in square brackets and URL in round brackets.

Why did I ask myself this question?

The reference environment: Emacs, Markdown-mode, insert a link

This article applies to the following environment:

• Emacs: GNU Emacs 26.3 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30) of 2019-12-03
• Markdown Mode: markdown-mode-20200622.20
• OS: Linux Ubuntu 20.4 LTS, Linux Fedora 32

The problem in a few words: You need to insert a link in a document written using Markdown-mode for Emacs and in the Link text you need to insert one or more spaces.