Jim,
I work in markdown almost daily for writing texts, filing notes, and for clipping (and cleaning) newspaper articles that I want to keep digitally. When using markdown in DT, I use the split view, even when it has some artifacts like text jumping up and down in the preview window, text disappearing when editing, next to the fact that often not all text was added to a markdown document from a clipped newspaper article (especially short sentences). What I really appreciate is that cleaning clipped articles in markdown works so well. I use a separate app called Text workflow (App Store) and defined all kinds of cleaning rules in it (that are basically find and replace rules), so when DT did a great job in clipping an article, I do an extra cleanup and check the article for missing parts. That way of working has proofed to work best in markdown.
Decent documents or letters I mostly write in LaTeX, so I am used to the concept of separating content from style. It keeps me focused. Exporting markdown to PDF is horrible from within DT. Exporting to PDF often feels like I miss essential features like page breaks, setting margins, page numbering and decent typesetting such as using an ok font type and size. When I need to export markdown documents, I open them in a markdown viewer Marked 2, select the preferred stylesheet and then export to PDF. Unfortunately this workflow only works when the markdown document does not contain images.
For Windows users (teachers mostly) I convert markdown first to RTF, open it in Apple Pages and then convert it to MS Word docx format. I have to do it this way because Windows does support RTF but not RTFd when the document has images. Apple pages does support the RTFd format that is basically a container format. I just realize that I might extend this workflow also for exporting markdown to PDF (I have to check that first).
I used to work a lot in RTF when I used Lotus Notes to keep my notes in, but RTF has – for me – the downside that it is difficult to separate content from style. Back in the days, this was possible for instance in WordPerfect and Ami Pro, but when MS Word became the standard, that disappeared.
For me – archive wise – the focus is on “can they still read it in eighty years from now?” I am still trying to optimize my way of working and with accompanied workflow that fits the bill, but at the moment, markdown feels the right choice because it is just text, platform independent and separates content from layout.
I prefer to read my newspaper articles in markdown on my tablet, so I sync that database via DT2Go. Its more convenient and easier for me to reflect and make notes while I am reading. Notes I make are just old school with pen and paper.
Back in the days I used 3M yellow notes to write down small things that I need to remember. Nowadays, I have a notes repository that I sync between my computer and my mobile devices. making notes this way is only done in markdown to make sure I can read them of different platforms and different software.
Johan