Explore our Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning Toolkit

Bloggers: Learn a new language in 10 minutes to boost your productivity!

Author's avatar By Dave Chaffey 28 Jul, 2011
Essential Essential topic

Learning a text markup language editor like Byword can help you focus on writing, not formatting

Many of us happily spend many hours editing text in our favourite blogging platform or CMS. In my case, and for many others this is WordPress. I love WordPress, but there was one big step backwards compared to my previous Plone CMS; the lack of a built-in markup language to make it easy to enter text without using HTML or fiddling around selecting formating and linking with the buttons using a mouse. I did check a couple years ago, but there were no suitable plugins for a multi-author blog.

But my problem is solved thanks to a tweet from Paul Boag (@Boagworld). Now I can edit without any distractions, without using the mouse!

What is a markup language?

Byword, the editor I’m using uses a syntax called Markdown. You can see it’s easy to add headings, lists and links and then in a couple of keystrokes and you can convert this…

to this…

and you’re ready to paste into WordPress and post. It’s like magic!

Which editors enable Markup support

I’m using BywordApp for Mac, but there are plenty of others including this Web service and WriteMonkey for Windows.

I hope this helps someone save a few minutes everyday. If you use something similar already I haven't worked out a way of inserting images really, but that's not a bother really!

Author's avatar

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.

Recommended Blog Posts