Markdown is a good way to write and a poor way to send. Most offices, editors, publishers and schools still want a Word document. The good news is that a Markdown file already holds everything a Word document needs: its headings, emphasis, lists, tables and footnotes are all marked in the text. Turning it into Word is a matter of reading those marks and writing the matching Word format.
This guide shows how to do it in Retroprose, free, in your browser, and what to expect in the file you get.
The short version
- Get the text into Retroprose. Write it there, or upload your Markdown file: File, Upload, or drag the file onto the screen. Files ending .md, .markdown or .txt, up to 2 MB each, become documents.
- Open the Export dialog. Press Ctrl+E, or choose File, Export.
- Choose Word. Press 1.
- Choose a template. P Plain, L Letter, R Report or A Article. Plain suits most things.
- Press Enter. The .docx file is made while you wait, which takes about a second for most documents, and is ready to download.
Exporting to Word is free on every edition, including the free floppy disk edition. It needs a connection, because the file is built on our server, and the download link lasts for 24 hours.
What comes across
| In your Markdown | In the Word document |
|---|---|
#, ## and ### headings |
Word's own Heading 1, 2 and 3 styles, so the navigation pane and a contents list work |
**bold** and *italic* |
Bold and italic |
- and 1. lists |
Real bulleted and numbered lists, each numbered list starting from its own first number |
| Tables | Word tables |
[^1] footnotes |
Real Word footnotes at the foot of each page, numbered in order |
\newpage |
A page break |
> quotes |
Indented paragraphs, or pull quotes in the Article template |
::: centre, ::: right and ::: justify |
Centred, right-aligned and justified paragraphs |
[links](https://example.com) |
Links that open in a browser |
| The title and author in the YAML block | The title page of the Report template, and the title and by-line of the Article template |
Because the headings use Word's own styles, the person you send it to can change the look of every heading at once, build a table of contents, or move sections about in the navigation pane. That is the main difference between a converted document and text pasted into Word.
Choosing a template
The template sets the layout. Your words are the same in all four.
- Plain: headings, lists and tables, with no extra layout. For most documents, essays and drafts.
- Letter: your address and the date on the right, the address you are writing to on the left, and your sign-off and name after the text. The guide How to lay out a formal letter explains it.
- Report: a title page, a contents list, numbered pages and numbered headings (1, 1.1, 1.1.1). For longer documents.
- Article: the title, a standfirst under it, "By" with the author and date, and each quote as a pull quote. For articles and blog posts.
Your name, address and sign-off come from the Exports part of your account page, so you set them once and every letter and article has them. A document can still give its own in File, Properties (Ctrl+F9), and the document always wins.
Fonts and spacing
A Markdown file has no fonts, sizes or colours, and Retroprose keeps none in your documents. The template chooses the fonts and spacing, so every export looks tidy and the same. If you need a house style, open the file in Word afterwards and change the styles there: because the headings are real styles, it takes a minute.
The font you choose for the Retroprose screen, such as the typewriter font, is for your screen only and never goes into the file.
Check it before you send it
Print preview (Shift+F7) shows the pages laid out with a template before you export them. It is a good way to catch a heading that should have been a paragraph, or a table that is too wide.
Other formats from the same text
The same dialog makes a PDF (2), an OpenDocument file for other office suites (3), a web page (4), plain text (5) and the Markdown file itself (6), all free. On the Zip disk and hard disk editions it also makes EPUB ebooks (7) Zip disk and hard disk editions. So you can keep one copy of your writing, in Markdown, and send each reader the format they want.
Going the other way
If someone sends you a Word document, Retroprose can turn it back into Markdown when you upload it. See How to turn a Word document into Markdown.