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Sunday, July 19, 2026

Markdown makes learning HTML less scary

A post by Adam Newbold about how to ensure your website is portable had me thinking about how I sometimes do exactly what he advocates — upload HTML files to a server.

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The idea is that you always have a copy of the site on your computer. So if the host shuts down for some reason, you can upload it to to a different server.

I do this for a website I created for the local tai chi club that consists of only six pages. Why add the complexity of a platform just for that?

But here’s the thing. You have to learn HTML. Adam insists that it’s easy, but I know a lot of people are going to nope right out at the thought of any kind of coding.

For those people, I suggest markdown. This is a system of marking up text for the web that hides the code. Instead, you use asterisks, hash marks, dashes and underscores.

If you want a bulleted list, for example, you put a dash in front of each item.

You don’t even have to remember that much, because it’s all covered in the apps under their Format menu.

A good app start with on the Mac is called MacDown, which is totally free. A new document gives you markdown on the left and formatted text on the right.

(Sorry, I don’t know of a free split-screen equivalent for Windows or Linux. Send me email if you have a suggestion.)

When you have your page looking the way you want, go to File > Export > HTML... And be sure to uncheck the box for Include styles. You want plain HTML. When you’ve learned CSS, you can add your own styles.

Once you have the export done, you can upload it to the server. If it’s the main or home page, make sure to change the file name to index.html.

Yes, that’s all it takes to have your own web page.

Still, you should at least gradually learn HTML. Take a look at the exported file and see if you can figure out how the tags work. The paragraphs, for example, all have tags. There — you’ve learned your first HTML.

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The newsonaut is Mark Rogers, a writer, designer and web coder living in beautiful British Columbia. Email | Mastodon

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The newsonaut is Mark Rogers, a writer, designer and web coder living in beautiful British Columbia.

https://newsonaut.com