Setup Atom to edit Markdown with math formula

Introduction

From the official website of Markdown:

“Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).”

As a Markdown enthusiast, I searched for a long time a Markdown editor that would support, at least:

math expressions,
code blocks,
diagrams.

For a moment I thought Stackedit synchronized with Google Drive was my solution, but it messed up my blog posts a few times and I dropped it. It had troubles when I modified my files from different devices.

After stackedit I switched back to using Syncthing to share raw Markdown texts between my devices and edited the raw texts. Until I remembered that Atom is based on web technologies and probably has the same features as stackedit.

Now I have Atom installed with Markdown packages it works just fine for my needs. Below I quickly describe a basic setup.

Install and configure Atom

Visit atom.io and download the latest version of the editor
Make sure you have Soft Wrap option activated
- Use the menu View > Toggle Soft Wrap
Install Atom packages for markdown
- Use the menu Edit > Preferences
- In the Preferences tab, click + Install
- Type “markdown”
Install the packages:
- language-markdown
- markdown-writer
- markdown-preview
- markdown-preview-plus
- markdown-preview-enhanced