Tables in Text Editor

[Ancient Dragon]

Is it possible to create tables in the text editor that will retain spacing -- something like code tags but without line numbers?

[Dani]

No, sorry. But if you double click on code snippets, they change to plain text without the line numbers.

[deceptikon]

Possible, yes. We technically could extend Markdown to support this feature, but I suspect Dani doesn't want to lock us into a specific version of the libraries because that would make upgrades quite a bit harder to apply.

[Dani]

It's actually not so much a technical reason and more of a standardization / usability reason in that I want to conform to standard Markdown with as few deviations as absolutely possible. This way, those familiar with Markdown can easily adapt to posting here and on other Markdown-flavored sites such as Github and StackOverflow without having to remember which syntax is allowed where.

Currently, DaniWeb only deviates in four ways from standard Markdown, and three of those four changes are also modifications that StackOverflow has made, and two of those four changes Github has made.

The changes made are all specific to the unique requirements of a developer audience posting user-generated content.

• Hard line breaks are treated as <br /> (also SO)
• Emphasis only over entire words (also SO and Github)
• Automatically likifies all naked URLs (also SO and Github)
• No HTML (limited HTML allowed on SO and Github)

I understand that Github allows tabular data, but I cannot validate a large enough portion of our audience using it in that it would make sense to be another reason to deviate from standard Markdown. Tabular data makes much more sense for Github project documentations than it does in short-form UGC such as on SO or DaniWeb.

[jeffcogswell]

Do you know if there's any macro or something that will take a Word doc and convert it to Markdown? When I uploaded my tutorial a couple days ago, it took a really long time to copy and paste from the word processor, especially in places where there was a lot of code and text interspersed. I guess though I could put the markdown marks right in my doc and then just paste the whole thing in...

[Dani]

Firstly, our editorial workshop is designed to allow you to write your tutorial directly from there, and keep revisiting it over and over again, until you're ready to mark it ready for publishing.

That aside, there are Markdown editors such as http://markdownpad.com/

A handful of results also come up if you Google 'microsoft word to markdown'.

[mike_2000_17]

you can convert almost anything into anything with the combination of unoconv and pandoc.

[jeffcogswell]

I'll probably just insert the markdown myself. I do my professional writing in the word processor and copy it over. (I have a version control system and entire workflow set up for it. :-) )