Introduction to Markdown digital workflows

Plain text formats have received increasing attention from scholars in recent years and have been described as among the best ways to store knowledge persistently. This workshop will introduce you to the benefits of using plain text files and simple markup formats to create flexible, robust, and future-proof workflows for digital scholarship, research, and knowledge.

We will begin with a brief introduction to the Markdown text format and create a short sample document which, with the use of a few simple tools, can be converted into a website, dynamic slideshow presentation, PDF, and even a formatted PhD thesis. We will also cover how to migrate existing “closed” files like Word documents and PowerPoint presentations into more accessible plain text Markdown (or similar formats like Asciidoc), for archival, collaboration, version control, and other purposes.

Prerequisites: A text editor (note: not a word processor!) that can save in plain text format. A good choice is VSCode https://code.visualstudio.com/ . Helpful, but not required: a GitHub.com or Gitlab.com account. We’ll demonstrate how to use GitHub Pages to host a static site. Some familiarity with working in a command line / Unix shell interface is useful but not required; some tools make use of the command line but alternatives exist. Some familiarity with Git is helpful; see the referenced Introduction to Git and Github workshop for more.

This workshop is part of the Core Skills series. If you have questions, concerns, or accessibility needs, please email [email protected]. To keep up-to-date with all our workshops, consults, and events, subscribe to the UBC Library Research Commons monthly newsletter.