One of the features most new users of Markdown don't realize is that it's original purpose was not for text files, but a simpler HTML markup language: ¹

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

I know a lot of people use Markdown for their text file system. Since Markdown can also use straight HTML markup, you have some unique flexibility in using a mix of straight text and HTML tags in your Markdown documents. One of the ways I've used this flexibility is getting a better email signature for my emails out of Drafts. Since the email Drafts will be processed as MD text to HTML, the signature can also use a mix of MD and HTML mark up.

Step 1: Create the MD signature

The first step is getting a working version of your signature text in Drafts or some other MD editor. Since Drafts will parse the body of the note and the signature, the signature can also be a mix of text and HTML. So now a signature in an email sent from Drafts could include a hosted image, text color, etc.

This is a sample signature for the 'MD Email' action:

----------------    
<span style="color: #f19c37">Jason Verly</span>
__Acme, Inc.__
<span style="color: #595959">123 Main Street</span>
<span style="color: #595959">Minneapolis, MN 56248</span>
Jason.Verly@acmeinc.com
P: 612-567-3218
C: 319-867-5309

Step 2: Create MD Email action

The next step is to create an action in Drafts that will send email via Markdown. The key here is to make sure the 'Send as Markdown HTML' setting is triggered.

From there the email template of the action should use something similar to this:

[[body]]

----------------    
<span style="color: #f19c37">Jason Verly</span>
__Acme, Inc.__
<span style="color: #595959">123 Main Street</span>
<span style="color: #595959">Minneapolis, MN 56248</span>
Jason.Verly@acmeinc.com
P: 612-567-3218
C: 319-867-5309

Step 3:Test email action

Now that the action has been created and saved, you can send an email using MD syntax. In Drafts I created the following note to be sent as an email using the MD Email action:

The 'MD Email' action is setup to use the first line of the note as the email's subject and the rest of the note as the body of the message. Clicking on the 'MD Email' action, I get the text of my note and the signature converted from Markdown to HTML. Note that the email signature now includes bold text and different colored text.

Voila! Now you have a great looking signature line on all your email from your iOS device.

Install Sample MD Action

Got any questions? Feel free to hit me up on Twitter at @MyGeekDaddy.

---

Comments from original WP Post:

internetowy kurs fotografii: I do not know if it's just me or if perhaps everyone else encountering issues with your website. It appears as if some of the text on your content are running off the screen. Can somebody else please provide feedback and let me know if this is happening to them as well? This might be a issue with my web browser because I've had this happen before. Many thanks

Jason.Verly: Thanks for the feedback. The problem is the site and how the site gets rendered in some browsers. Can you let me know what OS and browser you're using?