[BlindMath] markdown

[Eric Mandell]

Hi Jonathan,

This was incredibly helpful. Thank you. I would love to see the
continuation of this tutorial and other tutorials like it if possible.

When I ran the pandoc code in windows command line I got a couple
warnings. The first warning appears to refer to the latex code $$\mu =
\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n}{x_i}$$
I am not sure about the second warning. The HTML document was created
and looks fine except that it didn't turn the latex code $$\mu =
\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n}{x_i}$$ into math. I'm new to all this so I'm
not sure how to fix the issue.

Here are the warnings I got:
[WARNING] Could not convert TeX math '\mu = \frac{1}{n}
\sum_{i=1}^n}{x_i}', rendering as TeX: {1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n}{x i}
unexpected '}'

WARNING] This document format requires a nonempty <title> element.
  Defaulting to 'testmarkdown' as the title.
  To specify a title, use 'title' in metadata or --metadata title="...".

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks again for taking the time to
post this tutorial.

Eric

On 7/29/20, Emily Schlenker via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> This is wonderful! Thank you so much.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Jul 29, 2020, at 10:50 PM, Godfrey, Jonathan via BlindMath
>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Rmana and anyone else interested in markdown,
>>
>>
>>
>> I decided to write some thoughts here in a new thread because I think
>> there are a bunch of people who don't know, but should learn, how easy it
>> is to work with markdown.
>>
>>
>>
>> First: markdown files are plain text, editable in any text editor, even
>> Notepad in Windows. The raw files are therefore very readable in braille.
>> I choose to use uncontracted 8 dot braille output because I am generally
>> needing to see the range of characters used in coding that are seldom used
>> in literary work, including {} and \ for example.
>>
>>
>>
>> Second. The text files do not need to be given an extension of *.md but
>> this is strongly advisable. It will make conversion easier. You may need
>> to watch that an extra *.txt doesn't get added to your filename.
>>
>>
>>
>> Third: conversion to HTML is done using pandoc. Even if people are not
>> going to use markdown, getting hold of pandoc for conversion among other
>> formats is a good idea. We'll worry about that stuff later. Use of the
>> right editor can make conversion faster; we all have our favourites. In
>> general though, people will write a command line that is of the form:
>> "pandoc -s file.md -o file.html" which says take my source file called
>> "file.md" and make the output file "file.html". Even if the editor has a
>> conversion tool linked to it, this command line is what gets done behind
>> the scenes.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> So, that's the process. What's hard about that? Well the command line is
>> what throws people the most. I hope other people will share which editors
>> they use and the way they process the markdown in a more automated
>> fashion.
>>
>>
>>
>> Then, we need to write a few things down. If I gave you a text file and
>> you read the following five lines (count carefully, including blank lines)
>>  <starts>
>>
>> ## Introduction
>>
>>
>>
>> Let $\mu$ be the **population mean** of a variable.
>>
>> We calculate this by summing the observations and dividing by the number
>> of observations
>>
>> $$\mu = \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n}{x_i}$$
>>
>> <ends>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Back to me: I've used plain text characters to do some formatting, and
>> LaTeX users will see the familiar construct for an inline mathematical
>> element as well as an equation that will be on its own line in the
>> document. The use of the number signs (pound or hash to some people)
>> suggests some sort of heading based on the way it appears; in fact this
>> will be put as a <h2> element in HTML which means heading level 2. It
>> looks like I've tried to emphasize the "population mean" using some
>> stars/asterisks; two of them means bold, only one would have been italic,
>> and in a fit of logic, 3 means bold italic!
>>
>>
>>
>> Some other features that are less easily demonstrated in an email typed in
>> Outlook include how we make bulleted or numbered lists, and how we manage
>> indenting to make lists within lists.
>>
>>
>>
>> You have almost certainly read HTML content that was created from markdown
>> because it is used in blogging sites and numerous documentation projects
>> for software where there are code demonstrations. For example, if I type
>> `mean()` in a document, I am telling my students that the command "mean"
>> is used. I put the () there to make a point, but the use of the backticks
>> (also known as accent grave) turns that element into typewriter font.
>>
>>
>>
>> I hope you've had enough of a taste to want to know how to get pandoc and
>> a useful editor to have a go for yourself.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'll fetch out some instructions for getting the simplest installation
>> going when time allows = not in the next two hours.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jonathan
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>
>
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