Is there any way to get Scrivener to use markdown-compatible list types? This is mainly for unordered lists. It would be really great to be able to do extensive drafting in my favorite markdown editors (e.g. iA Writer), including lists, and have that translate and be recognized by Scrivener as the appropriate list type.
Currently, when I make lists in Scrivener, the format is strange (including indentations) when I edit in external markdown folder. When I go the other way (from external editor to Scrivener), the list isn’t even recognized.
I tried to use the built-in dash bullet type but it’s a different character than a hyphen, so that didn’t work. And I couldn’t find a way to create a custom bullet type where the bullet is just a regular hyphen.
Scrivener’s Markdown support is designed from the same premise as a Markdown editor, where that’s what you use to write, so no it doesn’t have anything that would modify the Markdown you create when you sync it back in.
It can produce Markdown from rich text, just not with sync since that would be asymmetrical. There are the two primary ways of doing so:
- For simpler cases (like converting a rich text list): the
Edit ▸ Copy Special ▸ Copy as Markdown command. You can cut with that, and paste over the original to “upgrade” it (as I would see it 
).
- And for cases where that isn’t good enough, as it is a bit on the simple side, the compiler has more extensive conversion options.
So what I’m getting at is that if you want lists that sync with Markdown, you do it like I just did above in this post, and type them in (or use the convenience tool to build them out and convert them with the first option once they are mostly done).
Given how powerful the second option is, it makes Scrivener one of the best platforms for Markdown-based writing, where producing documents from it is concerned. Where it is a little weaker is the text editor itself—but that is where what you are already mostly doing can step in and nicely fill the gap. Using a tool with syntax highlighting and typing aids can be very useful during principle writing, but very few of those can do a fraction of what Scrivener does when it comes time to turn that into a website, or an ebook, etc. The main difference is that you go all in with Markdown, and let Scrivener shine with it as it has been designed to.
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