[bArray]

Firstly, great job in getting that mess to play well with Git!

    The main limitation with Git is that it only works with
    plain text (think Windows Notepad). I have seen authors
    resort to plain text or markdown in order to take
    advantage of Git, but this means losing all of your rich
    formatting such as images and fonts. This is usually too
    much of a sacrifice for companies as formatting needs to
    be reapplied with each publication, which is very
    time-consuming and prone to errors.

"but this means losing all of your rich formatting such as images"

For plain text, sure, for markdown, nope.

"...and fonts"

Sure, but formatting can be applied after. With markdown, it supports HTML so you could event apply custom formatting inline, if you really wanted to do something so dirty.

"This is usually too much of a sacrifice for companies as formatting needs to be reapplied with each publication, which is very time-consuming and prone to errors."

Why not solve this problem? Why not make markdown more accessible to those wanting to use Word? Make something that looks like word, but in reality takes markdown and renders it using some flexible settings file?

I personally quite like markdown, to me it represents a minimal, future proof language. I would actually change a few things about markdown to make it more useful in an academic setting. Issues for me are referencing structure, diagrams, embedding content (at the position) and plots. Those things fixed, I would never look back at LaTeX or Word again.

One thing I would like to see remain, is the plain-text readability and being able to process it line-by-line without having to remember anything about the previous line.

Good luck with this venture, but if you're wanting to take a pivot, let me know :)

[mark212]

I'll answer some of these questions for the developer, because I'm smack in the middle of their target market: litigation attorney.

Anything other than Word is a non-starter for 99% of law firms (and the other 1% is still on WordPerfect). Markdown is awesome and I use it for my notes files and all kinds of things but contracts, settlement docs, pleadings, motions, etc etc all exist strictly and only in Word. And probably 50% of those are still .doc format, which was left behind more than a decade ago in Word 2007.

This product, if it works, will be a God-send for firms like mine (small to medium litigation shops that don't use full document assembly software with built-in version control like the AmLaw 100 firms. And it looks like even those firms might profit from this solution if it plays well with their customer style sheets and macros.

I wish it were different, but sadly the state of legal tech is mired in the late '90s.

[nylnd]

Another lawyer here (tax, UK) - there are similar products available and they're pretty commonly-used over here (such as Worksite for DKMS/version control and Workshare for comparisons between docs).

But the VC tends to be centralised, rather than distributed. I've often hankered after a more git-like experience when working remotely or offline, and I will follow this project with interest.

One area that is underserved at the moment is diffing .ppt files. Since a lot of the tax industry in particular uses PowerPoint for step plans and structure papers (because it is generally easier to build structure charts). Whilst it isn't the right tool for the job, for as long as people continue to use it, getting this working on your app would be huge.

[asr]

I'm pretty sure the latest version of worksite/workshare (never was sure which is which or what all the names are) can diff PPT files; apologies if I'm misremembering but that is my recollection from my firm.

I agree the developer needs to take a look at these if he/she has not already but there's plenty of room to improve on those products; I don't think the existence of some mediocre solutions should put the developer off.

[rubidium]

Completely disagree. There's a bunch of "word-like markdown editors" out there. We don't need one more of those.

There's a real market here. Word is huge, and people aren't gonna give it up. This looks to be a good technical solution. Trying to move people from word to markdown is an ok ideal, but not a practical business move.

My advice to the creator, ignore bArray's advice.

[petepete]

I agree with your comment.

I'm coming at this exact problem from the opposite direction, making a Markdown-based static-publishing CMS intended for corporate use (aimed at official documentation, standard operating procedures, handbooks, etc) and weening people who are used to it away from Word is the most difficult part of the entire process.

On the other hand, Word falls short when it comes to a large number of related documents, with inconsistent styling, flakey 'hyperlinks', ridiculous attachments and lack of good version control (something Simul appears to be tackling).

There's plenty of room for innovation in this area and props to the OP for actually tackling the harder challenge head on. My fear in trying to sell this to businesses would be that letting their confidential docs leave their network is going to be a hurdle. A self-hosted version would definitely be onto a winner, and anything that's not Sharepoint is a good thing.