Nice to see your continued work on this. I forget if I asked this in the past but: have you done any outreach to universities, PhDs and graduate students? Seems like they would love this and have...
Nice to see your continued work on this. I forget if I asked this in the past but: have you done any outreach to universities, PhDs and graduate students? Seems like they would love this and have a nice feedback loop of feature requests and usage. I could imagine Markdown being adopted very quickly by word of mouth. But I guess a major speed bump is the journals generally require the original source document in LaTeX?
That's a good idea. Yes, that's an unfortunate situation. Also, custom math-heavy documents tend to be a lot more dependent on LaTeX features than what Markdown can provide. Take sub-figures and...
I forget if I asked this in the past but: have you done any outreach to universities, PhDs and graduate students?
That's a good idea.
the journals generally require the original source document in LaTeX
Yes, that's an unfortunate situation. Also, custom math-heavy documents tend to be a lot more dependent on LaTeX features than what Markdown can provide. Take sub-figures and sub-equations for example. While these could be marked up with ::: subfigure ... ::: and ::: subequation ... :::, it'd still take elbow grease to percolate the typesetting behaviour through to ConTeXt.
Still, for non-math-intensive papers not slated for LaTeX-mandated journals, I think you're spot on that many students would like it. I'll poke around. If you have ideas where to start, do let me know.
I reached out to someone I know who is very well versed in academic research and publishing papers. Hope this doesn't sound too discouraging but this is what they had to say. When it comes to...
I reached out to someone I know who is very well versed in academic research and publishing papers. Hope this doesn't sound too discouraging but this is what they had to say.
When it comes to technical papers, in this person's opinion, LaTeX still dominates and there's not really a replacement. They pointed out that convenience tools around LaTeX are immensely popular, including things like the online LaTeX editor Overleaf.
Apparently Markdown is considered niche and for technical users, who are technical enough to go ahead and learn LaTeX anyway.
Non-technical users tend to go with the traditional Word doc or Google doc.
Hope that is helpful info, even if it's not the encouragement that I'd hoped to provide. At least among technical users there might be room for a comfortable niche for a Markdown-based tool.
I have always wondered about this. The submission guidelines I have read don't actually require authors to submit LaTeX source documents. In the initial run a PDF suffices, and if source files are...
But I guess a major speed bump is the journals generally require the original source document in LaTeX?
I have always wondered about this. The submission guidelines I have read don't actually require authors to submit LaTeX source documents. In the initial run a PDF suffices, and if source files are necessary they are not required to be LaTeX.
I have read that the journals themselves don't use LaTeX internally; they have their own typesetting software. The reviewers, for what it's worth, don't see the source documents. If journals provide a LaTeX template they always mention in their guidelines that it is gives an approximation of what the article would look like when published. This might just be some legal disclaimer, but still suggests to me that it is not used by the journal itself.
I imagine that the ubiquity of LaTeX through arXiv and derivatives is a much bigger source of friction in submitting articles to journals in a different format. But even arXiv accepts submissions in conTeXt (with a bit of persuasion on the submitters part), so again, barring potential coauthor complaints I don't see a reason to not use it.
The website doesn't really give me a strong pitch for why I should be using this instead of alternatives. There are existing markdown-to-pdf rendering options for very simple documents without...
The website doesn't really give me a strong pitch for why I should be using this instead of alternatives. There are existing markdown-to-pdf rendering options for very simple documents without stringent formatting requitements, and I'm not sold on this being equally powerful as just using LaTeX myself. I highly doubt it's even possible for me to do an interlinear gloss in KeenWrite, since doing one in LaTeX requires using one of several different dedicated packages that I doubt can currently be represented in KeenWrite's Markdown interface. Interlinear glosses are the reason my professors first told me to learn LaTeX back in undergrad, so they're non-trivial for the field. I'm not sure whether the charts available using KeenWrite can replicate syntax trees either. While my main perspective is of course informed by my field, I suspect other fields have similar important features that might not be adequately included in a project like this.
Also, I know it's popular within the LaTeX community to put all the documentation into pdfs, but it's incredibly annoying. Some documentation in a pdf that demonstrates the outputs in situ is fine, but we've long since reached the era of searchable online documentation.
As for finding something to replace LaTeX (which I've used enough to be well aware of its flaws), I'm much more on-board with projects like Typst rather than what amounts to a wrapper around TeX. A more readable alternative to LaTeX is definitely desirable, but the people working on Typst didn't sacrifice power and versatility when designing it. I actually already have switched to Typst from LaTeX for my personal projects, and any other pdf typesetting project would have to really impress me for me to consider it close to the same caliber.
LaTeX, ConTeXt, LuaTeX, and such are far more powerful. See: https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/ It's another tool in the toolbox. I developed KeenWrite because I wanted to have...
equally powerful as just using LaTeX myself
LaTeX, ConTeXt, LuaTeX, and such are far more powerful.
There are existing markdown-to-pdf rendering options
It's another tool in the toolbox. I developed KeenWrite because I wanted to have interpolated variables at my fingertips for use within my hard sci-fi novel. As I noticed more aspects of the final document that I wanted to change, I kept adding features for my own use. Custom typography, curling straight quotes, etc. I started typesetting markdown with pandoc, ConTeXt, and bash scripts, but then wanted an editor with preview to speed up the update-build-review cycle to real-time.
Interlinear glosses are the reason my professors first told me to learn LaTeX back in undergrad, so they're non-trivial for the field.
If it is possible to express in a regular grammar (as https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/a/159 suggests), then it's possible to typeset with any Turing complete typesetting system, including ConTeXt. An AI-generated ConTeXt file produced some rudimentary output. Perhaps a combination of ::: class and [word]{.class} syntax could be sufficient to express an intergloss? I have no idea, I'm not a linguist.
In any case, it would take lots of elbow grease to get it working with ConTeXt. Since LaTeX already has a solution, use LaTeX, it's the right tool for the job.
I'm not sure whether the charts available using KeenWrite can replicate syntax trees either.
If it can be graphed in GraphViz, then it can be graphed in KeenWrite. Here's a quick and ugly AI-generated AST for (a + b) * c.
For my purposes, I wanted to create a family tree and inject variables for character names, which was a fairly complex graph and is the first screenshot.
Typst didn't sacrifice power
If Typst works for you, great! There were a number of solutions I looked at that couldn't help me write and typeset my sci-fi novel to my satisfaction. Typst and Obsidian come to mind. My pain points were interpolated variables, automatic curling of straight quotes, no registration, free, open-source, cross-platform, and a desktop app that I could modify. Neither Typst nor Obsidian hits all those checkboxes. It sounds like you have a different set of checkboxes.
put all the documentation into pdf
A lot of manufacturers still require shipping printed manuals with hardware (e.g., mountain-top repeaters). Print shops work best when given print-ready PDF files. So while your use case finds PDF annoying, there are cases where PDF files are still needed. Not to mention novels and other types of books, such as my Impacts Project, which was written in 99% pure CommonMark (with some pandoc-compatible div extensions).
To be clear, I'm absolutely not against having pdfs with documentation and examples included -- I am against having that as your only or even principle form of documentation.
To be clear, I'm absolutely not against having pdfs with documentation and examples included -- I am against having that as your only or even principle form of documentation.
Completely agreed. The feature matrix was written in (R) Markdown (source) and I used KeenWrite to generate the static XHTML web page for it: keenwrite.bin \ -i index.Rmd \ -o index.xhtml \...
Completely agreed. The feature matrix was written in (R) Markdown (source) and I used KeenWrite to generate the static XHTML web page for it:
KeenWrite's architecture uses a processor chain for document transforms, where a document is processed and fed into a subsequent processor. One such chain is Markdown → XHTML, which allows for converting Markdown to web pages. Another chain is Markdown → HTML, which is what the real-time preview panel uses in the GUI. At one point, I had the lofty XML/XSLT → Variables → R Markdown → Markdown → XHTML → TeX → PDF, but eventually eliminated XML as an input source.
Your reply here is great and I am going to try this out later today! I really wish you could include some of the Rethink/Reflow language from the Manual on your landing page. Cause, when I first...
Your reply here is great and I am going to try this out later today!
I really wish you could include some of the Rethink/Reflow language from the Manual on your landing page.
Cause, when I first looked at this and saw your landing page, I thought this is just another Markdown editor.
I would like to give this a shot but I’m running into two roadblocks that maybe you can shed light on: the AUR package doesn’t build. when I run it in Linux the scaling is way off, the UI is tiny...
I would like to give this a shot but I’m running into two roadblocks that maybe you can shed light on:
the AUR package doesn’t build.
when I run it in Linux the scaling is way off, the UI is tiny relative to my screen. Everything else in the OS scales fine.
Thanks for working on something in between nothing and full LaTeX. I’ve been using LaTeX for a while but I’d like something lighter and quicker for building materials for my physics and maths students. I don’t have time these days to fight LaTeX and it seems like a good time to dip my toes in markdown. :)
Thank you for the feedback! I've asked the package maintainer to remove the AUR package. While I appreciate the effort, I deliberately developed KeenWrite to be "installation free". That is,...
Thank you for the feedback!
the AUR package doesn’t build
I've asked the package maintainer to remove the AUR package. While I appreciate the effort, I deliberately developed KeenWrite to be "installation free". That is, download into a directory on the PATH and make it executable:
I don't see how the AUR complexity adds anything of value for the maintenance burden it incurs.
the scaling is way off, the UI is tiny relative
Would you DM me a screenshot along with your system information (kernel, installation steps, application version, video driver, and such)? I'll see if I can replicate the issue.
Here's a user manual written in Markdown and typeset using ConTeXt. The source code is also available.
Thoughts?
Nice to see your continued work on this. I forget if I asked this in the past but: have you done any outreach to universities, PhDs and graduate students? Seems like they would love this and have a nice feedback loop of feature requests and usage. I could imagine Markdown being adopted very quickly by word of mouth. But I guess a major speed bump is the journals generally require the original source document in LaTeX?
That's a good idea.
Yes, that's an unfortunate situation. Also, custom math-heavy documents tend to be a lot more dependent on LaTeX features than what Markdown can provide. Take sub-figures and sub-equations for example. While these could be marked up with
::: subfigure ... :::and::: subequation ... :::, it'd still take elbow grease to percolate the typesetting behaviour through to ConTeXt.Still, for non-math-intensive papers not slated for LaTeX-mandated journals, I think you're spot on that many students would like it. I'll poke around. If you have ideas where to start, do let me know.
I reached out to someone I know who is very well versed in academic research and publishing papers. Hope this doesn't sound too discouraging but this is what they had to say.
When it comes to technical papers, in this person's opinion, LaTeX still dominates and there's not really a replacement. They pointed out that convenience tools around LaTeX are immensely popular, including things like the online LaTeX editor Overleaf.
Apparently Markdown is considered niche and for technical users, who are technical enough to go ahead and learn LaTeX anyway.
Non-technical users tend to go with the traditional Word doc or Google doc.
Hope that is helpful info, even if it's not the encouragement that I'd hoped to provide. At least among technical users there might be room for a comfortable niche for a Markdown-based tool.
I have always wondered about this. The submission guidelines I have read don't actually require authors to submit LaTeX source documents. In the initial run a PDF suffices, and if source files are necessary they are not required to be LaTeX.
I have read that the journals themselves don't use LaTeX internally; they have their own typesetting software. The reviewers, for what it's worth, don't see the source documents. If journals provide a LaTeX template they always mention in their guidelines that it is gives an approximation of what the article would look like when published. This might just be some legal disclaimer, but still suggests to me that it is not used by the journal itself.
I imagine that the ubiquity of LaTeX through arXiv and derivatives is a much bigger source of friction in submitting articles to journals in a different format. But even arXiv accepts submissions in conTeXt (with a bit of persuasion on the submitters part), so again, barring potential coauthor complaints I don't see a reason to not use it.
The website doesn't really give me a strong pitch for why I should be using this instead of alternatives. There are existing markdown-to-pdf rendering options for very simple documents without stringent formatting requitements, and I'm not sold on this being equally powerful as just using LaTeX myself. I highly doubt it's even possible for me to do an interlinear gloss in KeenWrite, since doing one in LaTeX requires using one of several different dedicated packages that I doubt can currently be represented in KeenWrite's Markdown interface. Interlinear glosses are the reason my professors first told me to learn LaTeX back in undergrad, so they're non-trivial for the field. I'm not sure whether the charts available using KeenWrite can replicate syntax trees either. While my main perspective is of course informed by my field, I suspect other fields have similar important features that might not be adequately included in a project like this.
Also, I know it's popular within the LaTeX community to put all the documentation into pdfs, but it's incredibly annoying. Some documentation in a pdf that demonstrates the outputs in situ is fine, but we've long since reached the era of searchable online documentation.
As for finding something to replace LaTeX (which I've used enough to be well aware of its flaws), I'm much more on-board with projects like Typst rather than what amounts to a wrapper around TeX. A more readable alternative to LaTeX is definitely desirable, but the people working on Typst didn't sacrifice power and versatility when designing it. I actually already have switched to Typst from LaTeX for my personal projects, and any other pdf typesetting project would have to really impress me for me to consider it close to the same caliber.
LaTeX, ConTeXt, LuaTeX, and such are far more powerful.
See: https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/
It's another tool in the toolbox. I developed KeenWrite because I wanted to have interpolated variables at my fingertips for use within my hard sci-fi novel. As I noticed more aspects of the final document that I wanted to change, I kept adding features for my own use. Custom typography, curling straight quotes, etc. I started typesetting markdown with pandoc, ConTeXt, and bash scripts, but then wanted an editor with preview to speed up the update-build-review cycle to real-time.
If it is possible to express in a regular grammar (as https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/a/159 suggests), then it's possible to typeset with any Turing complete typesetting system, including ConTeXt. An AI-generated ConTeXt file produced some rudimentary output. Perhaps a combination of
::: classand[word]{.class}syntax could be sufficient to express an intergloss? I have no idea, I'm not a linguist.In any case, it would take lots of elbow grease to get it working with ConTeXt. Since LaTeX already has a solution, use LaTeX, it's the right tool for the job.
If it can be graphed in GraphViz, then it can be graphed in KeenWrite. Here's a quick and ugly AI-generated AST for
(a + b) * c.For my purposes, I wanted to create a family tree and inject variables for character names, which was a fairly complex graph and is the first screenshot.
If Typst works for you, great! There were a number of solutions I looked at that couldn't help me write and typeset my sci-fi novel to my satisfaction. Typst and Obsidian come to mind. My pain points were interpolated variables, automatic curling of straight quotes, no registration, free, open-source, cross-platform, and a desktop app that I could modify. Neither Typst nor Obsidian hits all those checkboxes. It sounds like you have a different set of checkboxes.
A lot of manufacturers still require shipping printed manuals with hardware (e.g., mountain-top repeaters). Print shops work best when given print-ready PDF files. So while your use case finds PDF annoying, there are cases where PDF files are still needed. Not to mention novels and other types of books, such as my Impacts Project, which was written in 99% pure CommonMark (with some pandoc-compatible div extensions).
To be clear, I'm absolutely not against having pdfs with documentation and examples included -- I am against having that as your only or even principle form of documentation.
Completely agreed. The feature matrix was written in (R) Markdown (source) and I used KeenWrite to generate the static XHTML web page for it:
KeenWrite's architecture uses a processor chain for document transforms, where a document is processed and fed into a subsequent processor. One such chain is Markdown → XHTML, which allows for converting Markdown to web pages. Another chain is Markdown → HTML, which is what the real-time preview panel uses in the GUI. At one point, I had the lofty XML/XSLT → Variables → R Markdown → Markdown → XHTML → TeX → PDF, but eventually eliminated XML as an input source.
Your reply here is great and I am going to try this out later today!
I really wish you could include some of the Rethink/Reflow language from the Manual on your landing page.
Cause, when I first looked at this and saw your landing page, I thought this is just another Markdown editor.
I would like to give this a shot but I’m running into two roadblocks that maybe you can shed light on:
the AUR package doesn’t build.
when I run it in Linux the scaling is way off, the UI is tiny relative to my screen. Everything else in the OS scales fine.
Thanks for working on something in between nothing and full LaTeX. I’ve been using LaTeX for a while but I’d like something lighter and quicker for building materials for my physics and maths students. I don’t have time these days to fight LaTeX and it seems like a good time to dip my toes in markdown. :)
Thank you for the feedback!
I've asked the package maintainer to remove the AUR package. While I appreciate the effort, I deliberately developed KeenWrite to be "installation free". That is, download into a directory on the
PATHand make it executable:I don't see how the AUR complexity adds anything of value for the maintenance burden it incurs.
Would you DM me a screenshot along with your system information (kernel, installation steps, application version, video driver, and such)? I'll see if I can replicate the issue.