Markdown is a text-based markup language created by John Gruber in 2004 as a way to write in an easy-to-read format that can be converted into HTML. It uses a very simple formatting syntax of familiar punctuation and characters, which makes writing content for the web a faster and more intuitive experience.

As Markdown grows in popularity, new tools and applications have sprung up to cater to writing, converting and previewing the markup language. From tutorials, WordPress plugins and books to dedicated Markdown Service Tools for OS X, there is a wealth of excellent resources available.

SEE ALSO: 7 Free Tools for Creating Your Own Fonts

This post concentrates on 78 of the best tools and applications for writing and previewing Markdown, including resources for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS and the web.

Are there any Markdown tools we may have missed? Please share your recommendations with our readers in the comments below.

Markable is a powerful online Markdown editor, with syntax highlighting, auto indent and unindent, current line highlighting, and line numbers. It also allows the conversion of HTML to Markdown when uploading or importing files. Markable allows live previewing and is fully integrated with both Evernote and Dropbox.

Markdown Here helps you write email more quickly and powerfully without extra effort, as the tool eliminates all of the hassle of formatting email. It's available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Thunderbird, and it lets you add tables, source code snippets and even mathematical formulae to your email.

MultiMarkdown Composer is a text editor for Mac OS X, designed from the ground up around the MultiMarkdown Syntax. It is designed to make writing in Markdown even easier, with automatic syntax highlighting, built-in previews and easy exporting to any format, so you can focus on actual writing, rather than worrying about formatting and styles.

Scribble is used to create simple Wiki pages using Markdown syntax. It features live updates, collaboration and three plans to choose from, with the free plan allowing the creation of up to five Wikis. It's simple and straightforward to use, and it's ideal for teams organizing large volumes of data, connecting with remote workers or collecting information for new projects and employees.

Marked is a flexible Markdown editor boasting a live preview, which shows you the final output of your document as you work and refreshes every time you save. It even automatically scrolls to where you’re currently editing in your document. With one click, you can copy HTML and rich text, save a PDF or print your work. It also includes tools for handling page breaks, titles, tables of contents and much more.

Writemonkey is a Windows Zenware writing application with an extremely stripped down user interface, which means it's light, fast and efficient. With an array of innovative tools under the hood and full Markdown support, it helps you write better.

iA Writer offers a noise- and distraction-free writing experience, and it supports Markdown syntax so you can format your text without using a mouse, merely by adding a few simple characters. It's subtly formatted on-screen with the Writer's Auto Markdown feature. Updates are made after a three-second pause, and copying from the preview window lets you paste formatted text into other apps.

Mou parses Markdown syntax with a split-screen window, so while you type on the left, the text is saved and updated with the HTML conversion on the right in real time. The default setup only presents your syntax in raw HTML format, but you can import your CSS to better represent how your end product will look.

Markdown Dingus is the official Markdown converter from John Gruber (the creator of Markdown), which allows you to paste your Markdown syntax into it and preview the resulting HTML output. The cheat sheet located on the right is also useful for common syntax.

Byword is a simple and efficient text editor for Mac OS X. It features complete Markdown support, allowing you to preview your documents in the app and export to HTML, PDF, rich text or even publish directly to many popular web platforms. It also offers keyboard shortcuts, word count and live updates.

EpicEditor is an embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor with split full-screen editing, live previewing, automatic draft saving, offline support and more. It offers a robust API, can be easily themed, is easy to implement and requires just a single line of JavaScript to create a Markdown editor.

Markdown Pro is an easy-to-use editor for Markdown syntax, featuring a live preview to see how your formatted text will look. You can add your own custom templates to the template list to personalize your experience. It also boasts full-screen support, auto-saving, and "Export to PDF or HTML" and "Revert to Save" functions, so you can choose the document version to which you want to revert.

MarkdownPad is a full-featured Markdown editor for Windows, with keyboard shortcuts, live previews and customizable fonts, colors, layouts and stylesheets. It supports multiple Markdown processing engines, including Markdown Extra and GitHub Flavored Markdown, with tabbed documents, spell check, auto-save and syntax highlighting.

Easy Markdown lets the user create web pages with readable, well-formatted text by using the Markdown rules. As you type on the left, you will see the HTML output on the right, which can be copied to use in other apps. You can even create correctly formatted Markdown text without remembering the markdown rules thanks helpful tips from Easy Markdown.

Markdown Here is a Google Chrome extension that lets you write email in Markdown and render it before sending. It's especially good for programmers who write email with code in them, and it even supports syntax highlighting. It's simple to use — just write your email in your email client's rich text editor using Github-flavored Markdown, right-click in the compose area and then click "Markdown Toggle." This will convert the Markdown styntax to HTML.

Dillinger is an online, cloud-based, HTML5-filled Markdown Editor, with live preview and integration with Dropbox and Github. Dillinger has a split-screen live view, so as you type your Markdown on the left side of the window, you can view your formatted output on the right, in real time. It doesn't have built-in word count or spell-checking, but it features multiple themes, making it perfect as a free, flexible Markdown editor.

Editor is a simple Markdown editor (not WYSIWYG, but plain text), which you can host on your own servers. The easiest way to use Editor is simply to load the script and stylesheet. Once you've done this, an editor instance can be created, and the editor will take the position of the first <textarea> element. Editor supports icons for inserting bold text, italics, blockquotes, lists, links, images and more.

Markdown is a Mac OS X and iOS app featuring live previews, so you can preview your Markdown markup syntax to HTML while writing. It also allows you to sync your documents with Dropbox, use extended keyboard shortcuts and reference Markdown syntax.

Built using WMD and other open-source tools, Markdown Live Editor allows you to create and preview Markdown. When you press the "copy markdown" button, you'll get the Markdown markup wrapped in "markdown" and "p" tags, so you can send it as an email in order to create new blog post entries with services like Tumblr.

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool, which takes easy-to-read text that can be written by anyone and converts it to HTML. It's less of a fully-featured editor and more a simple tool to introduce others gently to Markdown syntax. You can start typing straight into the text box or upload a file to edit, then save the output as a TXT or HTML file.

The Online Markdown Editor lets you create HTML by entering text in a simple format that's easy to read and write. As you type Markdown text in the left window, you can see the HTML in the right pane. There is a Markdown syntax guide available, which you can view by switching the right-hand window from Preview to Syntax Guide.

ReText is a simple but powerful text editor for Markdown and reStructuredText, written in Python using Qt libraries, and is able to run on any platform. It supports full Markdown and features: tabs, live preview, auto-save, syntax highlighting, CSS styles support, and tags and symbols for quick insertion. There are Markdown and Export extensions available, and the app also also allows uploading to Google Docs.

Wri.pe is a simple, smart web-based notepad that supports Markdown, so you're able to input your notes quickly and efficiently. Dates written in the title or body are automatically inserted into your calendar, with keyboard shortcuts also supported. It's accessible from any device and your notes are kept safe with daily backups to Dropbox.

Sublime Text is a sophisticated cross-platform text editor for code, markup and prose. It serves as a fantastic "base" application to which you can extend with plugins. Extensions such as MarkdownEditing, Markdown Preview and Smart Markdown can help to create a phenomenal Markdown focused app.

MarsEdit is a popular tool for blogging and publishing, which has full support for Markdown with a preview window, so you can see how your Markdown document will look when styled and formatted. You can pair this with the Markdown on Save WordPress plugin (during WordPress installation), so once you click "Send to Blog," the plugin will convert your Markdown to HTML and publish the post.

Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers, which offers great Markdown compatibility, allowing you to write and export your Markdown in a variety of formats. While it doesn't offer Markdown previewing, it works well with both Markdown and MultiMarkdown syntaxes.

BlogEasy is a minimal blog client for WordPress that offers a simple, easy to use approach to publishing, with a small set of core features. You can write in Markdown, which is then automatically converted to HTML when published. You can also preview how the Markdown will look once formatted.

Notebooks for Mac is a powerful note-taking, task management and file storage app that supports Markdown. Just write your text in Markdown syntax and preview it (as Rich Text), which will change the file to HTML and present a variety of formatting options. Alternatively, you can choose "Copy as Markdown" and paste it into other applications, such as WordPress.

TextWrangler has long been regarded as one of the best and most popular HTML/Text editors for the Mac, which natively understands Markdown syntax. It saves only to plain-text files, and doesn't support styled-text formats such as RTF, but with just a few steps, you can have Markdown installed and ready to work.

Texts is a cross-platform visual Markdown editor, which helps you write well-structured documents, stored as plain text with Markdown markup. You can publish to PDF, HTML, Word, ePub and other formats, and apply styles to words and paragraphs with ease. Texts uses XeLaTex (a high-quality typesetting system) and a modern version of TeX to create PDFs.

TextMate is a well known text editor that supports a variety of languages through a system known as Bundles. To use Markdown in TextMate, simply download and install the Markdown Bundle. It's accessible from the Bundles menubar and inserts features such as preview, convert, cheat sheet and even allows you to generate the output in a browser.

Macchiato is a beautiful and simple plain text editor built from the ground up for writing Markdown prose. It formats Markdown text as you write and supports a variety of color and typographic themes. It features auto-saving, version history and full-screen mode for distraction-free writing.

Draft provides easy version control and collaboration for writers and supports Markdown, with rendered previews. Of special note are the Markdown to-do/tasks, which make creating lists and notes with Markdown incredibly simple, using GitHub-style Markdown syntax.

Qute is a cross-platform text editor with both Markdown and TeX support, and features per paragraph preview, so users can switch between editing the source and viewing a rich text rendering with typeset formulas for each paragraph separately. The interface is minimal, providing a distraction-free environment to write, with full-screen support. Qute is also themeable, so it can be customized to suit personal tastes and requirements.

Pandoc is a universal document converter and can convert documents from one format to another. It can both read and write Markdown, convert it to HTML and produce PDFs where LaTeX is installed. Pandoc utilizes a modular design to parse text in a given format and produce a native representation of it.

Inspired by Notational Velocity, Nottingham is an elegant notepad for Mac OS X that allows you to view fully customizable Markdown previews of your notes. It syncs via Simplenote and you can view your notes in both portrait and landscape mode, and sync with Dropbox to easily store your files as plain text notes.

LoremIpsum is a Mac OS X text editor for Markdown and rich text that features Markdown smart editing, export to HTML and a basic Markdown text formatter. It also features real-time Markdown preview and specific Markdown list continuations, with comprehensive keyboard shortcuts for speed and efficiency.

Free provides a simple, uncluttered writing experience, which fully supports Markdown (along with various other formats) to offer a distraction-free reading and writing environment. It boasts full-screen previews, auto-save, iCloud integration, paragraph highlighting, color schemes, readability statistics and formatted export to HTML or other documents.

Clean Writer Pro is a powerful, flexible fullscreen-capable text editor with Markdown preview, allowing you to convert documents to HTML using Markdown syntax, and export it to Clipboard, ready to be pasted or used in other applications. It features live counters for characters, words, hard lines and line numbers, along with paragraph focus mode, which lets you focus solely on the current paragraph with the others simply faded out.

Markdown CSS uses CSS to make HTML look like plain-text Markdown, with no JavaScript hacks required. It's built to support all of the standard Markdown elements, with an experimental Bookmarklet also available. If this interests you, there is also an older Markdown CSS project called ReMarkdown, which boasts similar functionality.

Writedown for Mac OS X is a minimalist text editor with Markdown syntax highlighting, with a small Markdown guide available under Markdown Basics in the main menu. It supports a variety of other formats, and features preview and full-screen modes with a customized appearance, allowing for changes to text, colors and text width. It also has a word counter and auto-save feature, which kicks in every five minutes.

It would be remiss not to mention Mac OS X's very own TextEdit, which can be used to create and edit Markdown formatted content and preview any Markdown syntax rendered in HTML. It may not have all the bells and whistles of other Markdown-specific apps, but it's a free and easy alternative.

Markdown On Save is a WordPress plugin that allows you to compose content in Markdown on a per-item basis. The Markdown version is stored separately, so you can deactivate this plugin any time and your posts won't spew out Markdown, because HTML is stored in the "post_content." When you re-edit the post, the Markdown version is swapped into the editor for you to edit.

Smultron is an elegant, powerful text editor with Markdown support, allowing you to write in Markdown and preview how it will be rendered as you write. It works with plain text only and offers a full-screen mode for distraction-free writing. The Documents palette shows all of the documents you currently have open, and each document is given its own window. Other features include syntax coloring, comments, tags and auto-complete.

Hallo is a simple in-place text editor, allowing you to edit and preview Markdown in WYSIWYG. Instead of cluttered forms or toolbars, you edit your web content as it is. It uses jQuery UI and HTML5 "contentEditable" functionality, and unlike more traditional editors, the content is never detached from its place on the page, so you can apply CSS rules. You can also customize the Hallo toolbars, with the editor itself designed to be very modular.

Online Markdown Editor is based on WMD, which uses jQuery and the jQuery Syntax Highlighter. You can write and preview Markdown syntax, highlight code and even print the output. A demo is also available to see it in action.

InstantMark is an HTML5 web application that allows you to write using Markdown syntax and see the instant preview on the right panel. You can use your own CSS file by dragging it from your desktop to the "Drop your CSS file(s) here" area. However, your CSS file will not be uploaded.

nvALT 2 allows you to take notes quickly and effortlessly, and it is a fork of the original Notational Velocity app. It supports MultiMarkdown, and can turn your note into a nicely-formatted HTML page. As you type, the preview window updates automatically, you can copy text to the clipboard and paste it into rich text applications, and the formatting will be preserved. Alternatively, clicking "View Source" lets you see the generated raw HTML.

MarkItUp is a JavaScript plugin that allows you to turn any text area into a markup editor. Markdown is fully supported, as is HTML, Textile, Wiki Syntax and BBcode. You can even implement your own Markup system easily. It's not meant to be a fully-featured editor, but rather a lightweight, customizable and flexible engine, with keyboard shortcuts and customizable toolbars and menus.

Gonzo is a lightweight, open-source Markdown editor written for Adobe Air on desktop, using Flex 4 and AS3. It's a stripped-to-the-bone application that serves one purpose: helping you deliver well formed and easy-to-proofread web content. It is written specifically for those who want to leverage the readability of Markdown over HTML when publishing web content, and it features live HTML preview, multi-tab editing, keyboard shortcuts, HTML export and even an integrated Markdown cheat sheet.

BBEdit is a popular, high performance text editor, with an abundance of features for editing, searching and manipulating text. It supports Markdown, which can be previewed directly within the app. You can also set Markdown as the default language in the editor's preferences, with the language module now supporting syntax coloring. The output can be exported or copied and pasted into other applications.

Ulysses III is a writer's environment with a revolutionary text engine, which combines the best concepts of minimal markup with the power and simplicity of OS X. It fully supports Markdown and features a minimalistic three-pane interface with iCloud sync, full-screen previews, state restoration, inline highlighting, comments, footnotes and keyboard shortcuts. You can export your documents to RTF, PDF, TXT or HTML.

Markdown Life is a dedicated Markdown editor with syntax highlighting, live preview, versions support, full-screen mode, code assistance, PDF and HTML export options, and much more. You can customize its appearance using themes and templates, with the app also boasting full accessibility support, a word counter and line number display.

Denote is a Markdown text editor for Android that provides effortless syncing with Dropbox. You can create, view and edit text files, with live preview for Markdown and HTML. It features auto-saving, offline support, sortable file listings and customizable font sizes and typefaces.

Notesy is a note-taking app for iOS with your notes seamlessly synced over-the-air, to and from your Dropbox account, as plain text files. It has full Markdown support, and even comes with a Markdown-themed accessory keyboard. The sophisticated built-in search functionality means you can find specific notes fast, and even includes sub-folders. It also has full offline support, and you can keep your notes private by setting a pincode.

Backpager is an online Markdown editor, which you can use as a WYSIWYG Markdown editor because the syntax is converted on the fly, or if you need to write some HTML quickly, edit web content or write technical documentation. Another interesting aspect of Backpager is Showdown Highlight, which is a JavaScript port of Markdown.

Nocs is an iOS app for browsing, editing and organizing your notes and documents. It's integrated with Dropbox and supports Markdown, which is shown automatically as formatted documents, with on-the-fly conversion. You can easily author rich or plain text documents, with structure, formatting, hyperlinks and pictures with one-tap previews and the ability to export to HTML.

MarkMyWords is a cross-platform text editor that has been specifically developed and designed for web content producers and supports a selected set of Markup languages, including Markdown. It features syntax-highlighting, headline navigation, templates and instant previews of your document in its formatted state. You can also choose to live-preview in raw HTML-source. The Marker System allows you to set markers to remind yourself of places that need to be edited or missing parts of your document — an especially useful feature.

LightPaper is a simple, beautiful and powerful text editor for Android, which supports Markdown and MultiMarkdown. You can switch to Distraction Free Mode to immerse yourself completely in your current paragraph, and you can store your documents locally and sync them with Dropbox. It allows you to preview Markdown as you write it and features Markdown shortcuts to surround or insert Markdown tags quickly.

Draft is a versatile text editor for Android, which lets you easily organize, edit and share all your notes. You can create regular plain text files as well as Markdown and MultiMarkdown files, and since it's powered by Dropbox, your documents are stored in the cloud where you can easily access them from any device. It features full-screen editing, smart editing with dedicated Markdown shortcuts, full text search and folder organization.

Simplenote a text-based note-taking application that also supports Markdown. You can write and edit in Markdown by clicking on the "i" button and mark a note as Markdown Formatted. Simplenote will then show Edit and Preview buttons. You can edit your original text and then preview the rendered HTML, with any links, quotes, headers or other formatting you've added. There is also a wealth of add-ons and extensions to enhance the power of Simplenote.

MarkDrop is a simple, dedicated Markdown editor for Android, which syncs with Dropbox so you always have access to your documents. You can also "Quick Preview" as your write in Markdown. MarkDrop has a minimal feature set, and lacks tablet support, but is a quick and easy option.

Nebulous Notes is a powerful, yet simple, text editor for note-takers, writers and coders. Your notes are backed up and available from Dropbox. You can open and edit all plain-text files with previews available in HTML and MarkDown. It has customizable themes, full-screen support and is tight on security with the ability to protect the app with a PIN.

Elements is a beautiful, versatile text editor for iOS, which allows you to view, edit and share plain text documents with the data stored in your Dropbox account. You can create, view, edit and preview Markdown and MultiMarkdown files. It also features offline support, auto-saving, and word, line and character counts.

Writer is a simple text editor for Android that supports Markdown. You can preview how the document renders, and the app stores your documents as text files on your device. However, this means you need to transfer them manually to your computer or an online storage device.

Textastic is a fast and versatile text, code and markup editor for iOS and OS X with complete Markdown support and integration. It delivers more than just plain text editing and code completion, with syntax highlighting, format and encoding options, code completion, auto-indentation, symbol navigators and built-in line and column counts. You can also preview rendered Markdown from within the app and email HTML and Markdown files.

Markdown Preview is a Google Chrome extension that converts and previews Markdown files (.md, .markdown) to HTML right inside Chrome. It now uses Github-style CSS and automatically parses Markdown files into HTML. Just install and check "Allow access to URLs" in the extension settings. However, note that it currently has no support for tables.

Writing Kit is an advanced Markdown text editor to write Markdown formatted text. It has Dropbox integration and allows you to export documents Markdown or HTML. Its features include auto-save, CloudApp support, document outlines, in-app previews, font choices, word and character counts, cheat sheets, and TextExpander integration. Of particular interest is the research facilities, such as word definitions and Wikipedia summaries.

Heck Yes Markdown comes from the team behind Marked, and it's home to the "Markdownifier," which converts any web page to Markdown. You can preview the Markdown syntax or the rendered HTML, and even copy the Markdown text to the clipboard. There is also a variety of Bookmarklets available with different options and combinations of features.

Strapdown.js makes it simple to create elegant Markdown documents, with no server-side compilation required. You can use it to document your projects, create tutorials, home pages and more. It's search-engine friendly, cross-browser compatible (tested with mobile Safari, IE 8/9, Firefox, Chrome), themeable and uses Github-flavored Markdown to support tables and syntax highlighting.

Textdown is a simple, efficient, powerful and customizable text editor for Google Chrome that lets you edit and write Markdown. It features a live preview pane for the rendered output along with autopairing, export to HTML and shortcut keys. It allows you to print local files and save Markdown links and images when copying.

Chocolat is a beautiful, practical text editor for Mac OS X that supports Markdown. It combines native Cocoa with powerful text editing tools, and features split-screen editing, syntax highlighting, auto-complete, multi-cursor editing, live preview and even comes prepackaged with documentation for the active language. There are also a variety of pre-defined themes to choose from.

Hashify is a simple Markdown editor that, as you type on the left, automatically formats your text on the right side. It's unique in that every URL contains the complete contents of the page, and the address bar updates with each keystroke as you type into the editor. It's powered by Showdown and is clean, fast and efficient. The Hashify Editor from the same author may also be of interest, as it turns any text area into a capable Markdown editor.

Markdown Live Preview is an easy-to-use, web-based Markdown editor and previewer that lets you write Markdown syntax in the text area and then preview it by clicking on HTML Preview. You can go back and edit your markup using the Edit Markdown button. It utilizes Markdown.js, which is a Markdown parser for JavaScript.

Dropplets is a simple open-source Markdown blogging platform, dedicated to making blogging simple again, with no database or confusing admins. It's easy to install, and you can compose posts entirely in Markdown (using any text editor), then drag and drop to publish. It ships with two templates, with more to be added in future versions. There's a demo available to see how Dropplets works and looks.

Markdown Viewer is a simple live markdown editor combining Twitter Bootstrap and Markdown.js, which supports the original Markdown syntax. It also includes a cheat sheet with all the major Markdown syntax for easy reference.

Markdown.io allows you to easily create websites, Wikis and blogs without the need of HTML knowledge. You simply write in Markdown and then save to a public folder in a cloud storage provider (such as Dropbox), and select "Get public link." You can then put the URL into the text box on Markdown.io and hit "Go!" There is also a Wiki provided to help you get started quickly.

Poster is a beautiful, easy-to-use blog editor with Markdown support, allowing you to preview Markdown formatted posts quickly and automatically convert Markdown to HTML when publishing to your blog. It is tightly integrated with Dropbox and features full WordPress integration, including custom post types.

Mashable composite: Image via iStockphoto, Si-Gal