Why I am gung ho about Typora

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    This post is going to be a tutorial on Typora with almost end-to-end instructions for a beginner. Install Typora and Pandoc as a prerequisite. Refer to my previous posts or figure them out by yourself. 

First, I want to answer why Typora and why Markdown. Typora is a Markdown Editor with a WYSIWYG interface, and it makes using Markdown a lot easier. For those skeptical about Markdown, kindly note that great products may not come with a great endorsement.

Technical Writing is not a particularly easy job, but everyone can be a Technical Writer to the same extent to which everyone can be an artist. Markdown can help everyone be a Technical Writer, and an easy-to-use Markdown tool such as Typora can make it even easier.

Conduct training on Markdown for all product team members and not just Technical Writers. The content created using Markdown can be easily integrated into CMS. People responsible for the product can write about the product and the features they are developing.

Quick tips for using Typora Markdown Editor (with screenshots included):

  • Apply styles:


  • Apply style formatting:


  • Select Paragraph > Table > Insert Table or Ctrl+T to insert a table.
  • Insert Format > Image > Insert Image or Ctrl+Shift+I to insert an image. The Zoom Image setting helps render the image with the correct size.
  • Apply your preferred CSS stylesheet by selecting a theme: 

  • Use a custom theme and refer to other help topics:


  • Apply links, see https://support.typora.io/Links/
  • Cross-reference:
Consider that What is Markdown? is a level-three heading within your content. You can provide a cross-reference to it as follows. The number of # symbols indicates the heading level and spaces are replaced with hyphens.

[What is Markdown?](###What-is-Markdown?)

  • Hyperlink:

Any text with the format of a hyperlink is converted into a hyperlink by default.

The following is the default hyperlink for www.security.honeywell.com (click to see it):

[www.security.honeywell.com](www.security.honeywell.com)

Edit the hyperlink as required:

[www.security.honeywell.com](https://www.security.honeywell.com/)

Note: The text placed inside the Code Fences (Paragraph > Code Fences or Ctrl+Shift+K) is not parsed by the markup. Apply code format on a text using (Format > Code or Ctrl+Shift+`). This can be useful when you are using code snippets inside a table.

  • Apply Footnotes:

You can create footnotes like this[^fn1] and this[^fn2].

[^fn1]: Here is the *text* of the first **footnote**.

[^fn2]: Here is the *text* of the second **footnote**.

  • Apply TOC, select Paragraph > Table of Contents.
  • Export options:


  • Apply Preferences settings:
  • Select File > Preferences > Markdown. The options available here enables you to use subscript, superscript, highlighting, and other options in the text.


  • To enable autosave, select File > Preferences > General and select the Auto Save option.

Line break <br> and page break are among the very few instances in which I use native HTML tags. You may need the page break option to move some contents to the next page in the PDF output. 

<P style="page-break-before: always">

Markdown has minimal but enough formatting options. You will find a way of doing anything and everything with it. Initially, I found inserting images tricky when I wanted to align them to left or right, as they are always center justified. I found a way around it by inserting them inside a table. Tables allow applying justification the way we want. Similarly, we can find a workaround for almost anything if there is no direct option.

Related articles:
The ability to learn is the key to survival. We can learn faster by learning from each other.


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