UberWriter Markdown Text Editor For GNOME

sohail -

UberWriter is a markdown text editor for GNOME. The app works with other desktop environments too since it is available only on flathub repository. All you have to do is install the app on your KDE, Cinnamon desktop while flatpak takes care of all the required dependencies to run UberWriter. Read on below to learn more about this awesome cool markdown text editor.

Install UberWriter

For GUI-savvy users, launch Software Center app and search UberWriter. Select the app and click the Install button.

For terminal-savvy users, launch your favorite terminal program and key in the below command: 

sudo flatpak install flathub de.wolfvollprecht.UberWriter

Once the application is installed, it’ll be listed on your app overview or start menu list.

Create documents using markdown

If you’ve never tried markdown language, don’t worry, it’s easy to learn while at the same time beautiful too for structuring your document using this language. Unlike HTML (a markup language) where numerous tags are used to structure a document, markdown allows you to create your document using a hash, number, dash, and so on. Thus keeping your drafting document clean and readable at the same time. Later, you export your drafted document to various formats a markdown program can support. Some of the popular formats include exporting to PDF, HTML, ODT, etc.

Mono-text editor

UberWriter has a clean text editor with mono font for drafting a document. The editor layout is centered and the sentence length in a row is limited to keep the text readable. Apart from the horizontal bar, there are no menu bars and toolbars to keep the editor distraction free.

Keyboard shortcuts

Below are some keyboard shortcuts you can use to structure your document for commonly used markdown command and for quickly accessing UberWriter features:

  • Heading: Ctrl + h
  • Bold: Ctrl + b
  • Italic: Ctrl + i
  • List item: Ctrl + u
  • Focus mode: Ctrl + d

You can view all the list of available shortcuts by clicking the options button list and selecting Keyboard Shortcuts.

Focus

Almost every markdown text editor boast of featuring focus mode and UberWriter is no stranger to that. Click the options button on its title bar and turn on Focus Mode. Your current sentence will get focused while the other sentences and paragraphs are grayed out.

Clean interface

Apart from the title and status bar, the UI is clean and minimal keeping GNOME philosophy perfectly well. Moreover, those bars disappear (soon) once you start typing. Below is a sample screenshot of me writing this article on UberWriter.

Dark theme

If you write a lot and prefer a dark theme UberWriter has a dark mode checkbox option in its preferences window. You can access that through the options list.

Preview document

Press Ctrl+P to preview your current draft. Pressing the same key combination again will exit the preview document. Depending on the length of your document the preview will take time to load; slow if it’s lengthy otherwise fast if your document has minimal content.

Export document

Finally, you might need to export your document to a format you can distribute later to your colleagues and friends. There are three popular file formats for exporting: HTML, ODT, and PDF. You’d have to manually install an additional add-on for PDF support. The app has listed the appropriate command to execute in case you wish to export to PDF on its export window tab.

Crash course tutorial

Are you entirely new to markdown language? There’s a tutorial option on UberWriter in which the creator of the app demonstrates some of the markdown commands in a short sample document. You don’t have to know all of them, just the ones that suit your writing situation. For instance, if you are a content writer and not some programmer who likes to demonstrate pseudo-code to a problem, you can skip all the Codeblocks part. And so on, for non-mathematicians to leave that complex Math equation part too.

Conclusion

UberWriter is a markdown text editor that integrates well with GNOME desktop. In case you are looking for some other markdown text editor that would work on all desktop environments, there is another one called Mark Text. That I’ll cover in my next article.