Best Markdown Editors for Freelancers Who Actually Need Structure

If you’re a freelancer managing multiple clients and projects, with files flying around across Obsidian vaults, Notion pages half-built, and Git commits that maybe shouldn’t have been committed yet… this is for you. I’ve tested more markdown editors than I’m proud of, mostly because every time something breaks (file syncing, tag indexing, or export formatting), I get grumpy and jump ship.

Let me walk you through the markdown editors that actually helped me survive freelance chaos without losing my notes or my mind.

## 1. Using Obsidian for non-linear client documentation workflows

Obsidian is my long-term storage brain. It’s where I try to map out client timelines, notes from onboarding forms, final deliverables, and all the copy drafts in between. Being local-first and markdown-native means I won’t get locked out when Wi-Fi dies at the airport. (It’s happened.)

But let’s not romanticize it — Obsidian isn’t perfect. Folder search can slow down massively on large vaults unless you toggle off the live preview. Link auto-complete sometimes misfires if you’re using too many nested folders. And I constantly forget to update the graph filter views, so it ends up looking like a spaghetti accident.

I use the Dataview plugin to build dashboard-ish notes, like:

“`markdown
“`dataview
table file.name, tags, modified
from “clients”
where contains(tags, “active”)
sort modified desc
“`
“`

This lets me turn loose notes into a kind of dashboard — but yeah, debugging field queries in Dataview? Not fun if you’re in a hurry

Pro tip from real pain: avoid using hyphens and underscores in field keys interchangeably. Dataview gets temperamental about that. It once filtered out half my notes without errors. I lost 2 hours to “why aren’t my deliverables showing up?!”

What it’s good for:
– Building an internal wiki for each client
– Keeping versioned templates (proposals, SOWs, contracts)
– Connecting daily notes to project sheets via backlinks

It breaks down when:
– You want WYSIWYG tables with real alignment
– You’re syncing via Google Drive and hit a weird cache loop
– Your client wants you to export the notes cleanly — PDF export formatting is… not reliable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

## 2. When Notion is better than markdown and when it’s worse

Notion isn’t a markdown editor. But markdown syntax *works* in it, kind of. I still keep trying to use it for freelancing because the database filters are so powerful, and the design makes things look client-polished out of the box.

Here’s what usually happens: I import some markdown notes, try to make a table view of my “article queue” database, realize that Notion’s markdown import flattens headings or turns code blocks into odd paste-ins, then give up and reformat manually.

My biggest pain point: nested bullet lists pasted from actual markdown files get bloated with blank lines in Notion. Same thing with toggles — you think you’re importing one clean section, then click it and boom: 19 lines of whitespace 😛

What does work well:
– Creating a content calendar with filterable tags + due dates
– Embedding assets (screenshots, feedback PDF copies)
– Letting clients comment directly on deliverables

Where the markdown part falls short:
– Exporting the markdown back *out* of Notion — it’s too lossy
– Parsing Notion’s .md export via API — headings turn into title properties at random
– No quick keyboard shortcut for inserting code fences without switching block types

If you’re fine with copy-pasting and don’t need Git-based versioning, cool. But if your workflow is revision-heavy and needs real plain text portability, you hit friction fast. Official documentation on handling Notion markdown is at https://notion.so but it’s not super detailed on these quirks.

## 3. When Typora feels like a dream and why I still stopped using it

Not gonna lie, Typora almost convinced me to stay. WYSIWYG markdown editing that *actually obeys markdown specs* — I mean! That’s how editors should treat users.

The problem? I kept getting lured by how pretty things looked. Then, three months later, I tried to sync my notes across Dropbox into an iPad app and realized Typora-specific CSS themes were bloating things.

Also, Typora doesn’t have version history built in. If you overwrite a draft note, it’s gone unless you’re using Git or Dropbox revision versions. That can be terrifying when you’re rushing a deadline at 1am.

Actual usage scenario:
– Writing a report for a healthcare client with many sections, citations, and #todo blocks
– Switching between outline view and preview to hunt for missing sections
– Forgetting to close a code block, which made half the doc disappear in preview mode

Best part:
– Typora supports custom Markdown CSS themes, which is lovely when your client wants PDFs with headers matching their brand colors

Worst part:
– No plugins or extensions — it’s a locked environment
– Multi-folder management is clunky. You can’t browse multiple working folders at once

For single projects or when I’m ghostwriting and need clean, attractive export — okay, Typora wins. But when a client says “Can I have a markdown source and editable version?” I default to other tools.

## 4. Working in VS Code using markdown plugins like Paste Image and Markdown All in One

If you already live in terminals and use Git daily (or want to feel like you do), VS Code is a top-tier markdown playground. Installed with the Markdown All in One plugin and Paste Image, it gets seriously powerful.

Here’s what I do:
– Create a folder per client, with “notes.md”, “ideas.md”, and “deliverables.md”
– Use custom keyboard shortcuts for checklist toggling and heading navigation
– Paste screenshots directly into the doc with `Cmd+Alt+V` (Paste Image plugin auto-saves it in local ./assets/)

Workflow pain points:
1. Paste Image sometimes fails silently if your folder write permissions are messed up
2. Heading folding behaves oddly if there’s intervening whitespace
3. Live preview works best on Chromium-based renderers and sometimes misaligns with remote Markdown engines (like GitHub’s)

Bonus: you can write Markdown and immediately push to a private Git repo if you’re doing ghostwritten ghostwriting (no joke — it’s a thing, don’t ask), and still want versioned history.

It’s ugly compared to Notion, but this stack is *resilient*. Even when VS Code crashes, most notes are intact as plaintext. Plus, diffs in Markdown are readable — which means if a client asks, “What changed between v2 and v3?” I can show actual GitHub commits.

## 5. Quirks of syncing markdown notes across apps using Dropbox or Git

Short version: syncing Markdown notes using Dropbox worked until it didn’t. I had two MacBooks and an iPhone with 1Writer. Thought I was clever. Then one freeze during client travel completely borked timestamp syncs.

Real example:
– Edited “client-A-proposals.md” on MacBook A
– Forgot to close Typora
– Opened the same file on MacBook B, added new draft
– Dropbox synced… but made the version from A take priority
– BAM: overwritten note, no warning

Even Git doesn’t fully protect you unless you commit *before* you change files on another device. I started writing a pre-push hook to auto-stash changes, but even that got complicated when 1Writer wasn’t Git-aware. One time, I clicked “push” from Working Copy (iOS Git client), and it added a merge commit from week-old notes I had deleted.

My advice:
– If you’re going to use multiple devices to write markdown:
– Use Git, not Dropbox, and push manually
– Don’t assume timestamp = version
– Always check diffs before pushing
– Never trust Typora’s autosave blindly
– If using Obsidian Sync, test on dummy vaults first — plugin timing is weird
– Keep local backups of all “client-critical” notes in zipped archives too
– Don’t open the same vault in Obsidian and 1Writer at the same time — sync loop hell

Painful? Yeah. But after losing a 4-hour proposal revision, I learned my lesson.

## 6. Lightweight markdown editors that sound helpful but secretly make things worse

App names removed for legal reasons, but you’ll know them. The ones that advertise “simple markdown editor for productivity lovers” and have a nice pastel UI with tags and focus writing mode.

They look fine. But…

– File formats are secretly not plain .md — they use SQLite or internal JSON
– Import/export spaghetti — headings get converted to metadata
– Markdown fences break if you copy-paste from browser code blocks
– No keyboard shortcuts for inserting lists = too many clicks

Also, one of those even wiped all my files during a background sync because it thought the cloud copy was newer — when all I did was rename a folder. No trash recovery. Just vanished.

Moral of story: If the markdown editor doesn’t let you pick the default file extension (.md vs .markdown vs .txt), or hides where your notes live, run.

It took me two days to recover from that one. Should have stuck with a battle-tested stack — plain text and clear folder syncs.

## 7. When to skip markdown entirely and use Coda or Google Docs

Some projects aren’t meant for markdown. And forcing it usually makes things worse.

Examples:
– You’re working on a content calendar shared with five stakeholders
– Client wants inline comments on specific parts of the doc
– You’re juggling feedback versions and need a birds-eye doc history

Google Docs — shocker — handles that better. I once tried to do proposal drafts in markdown and shared rendered PDFs. Big mistake. Client asked, “Where can I leave comments?” and I realized I’d spent 4 hours publishing docs that still weren’t editable.

Same with Coda. It’s not markdown-native, but if you’re managing deadlines tied to notes, having buttons and logic columns helps. You can also embed text blocks next to tasks and tag status natively.

What I do:
– Start all client-facing drafts in Google Docs
– Keep personal production notes in Obsidian or VS Code repo
– If comments or read receipts matter, skip markdown entirely

You don’t need to be religious about markdown. It’s a tool. When collaborating at scale — and clients consistently ghost or ask for “one last edit at 11pm” — you want version control they understand.

As long as your notes are recoverable, readable without dependency, and don’t vanish because a UI update renamed a tag without warning, you’re fine.