Using Drafts to create DOCX templates

Two important items came across my desk in the last day or so. The first was a post by David Sparks (@Macsparky) regarding a new iOS app called makeDoc. I did a quick post on using makeDoc app. I cannot believe how such a simple app has filled gaps in my workflow. The functional use of makeDoc app has already pushed it to my iPad’s home screen. [1]

The second piece was how Hilton Lipschitz (@hiltmon) used MMD to create a letterhead document via Markdown:

I thought that letterheads went the way of the dodo about the same time fax machines and US Mail both died out. I was wrong. It turns out, sometimes to make something “official” (whatever the heck that means) you need it on letterhead. And since it’s 2013, a PDF version is acceptable.

Now I could have just dragged a logo into a Pages document, added the letterhead text, written the document, manually formatted it, PDF’d it and emailed it. But since I am probably going to do more of these, I decided to integrate letterheads into my regular Markdown process.

My first thought was just to make a couple of common forms in MD format and create Text Expander (TE) snippets for them. Then I realized I could take this one step further by combining the two. Here’s a new workflow I have for some common templates I need to use at work:

  1. Open Drafts on my iPad and run the TE snippet for a template in MD format. This will include images/graphics I may need to have in the form.
  2. Add any custom or updated information to the form as needed.
  3. With a new URL action in Drafts, copy of the MD text to the clipboard and open makeDoc app.
  4. Click the icon to copy the clipboard into makeDoc app as MD text.
  5. Voila! A new .docx document I can send internally as needed with the email option in makeDoc.



The custom action for Drafts is [2]:

drafts://x-callback-url.com/create?text=[[draft]]&action={{Copy to Clipboard}}&afterSuccess=Delete&x-success={{makedoc:}}

Got any questions? Feel free to hit me up on Twitter at @MyGeekDaddy.

  1. It’s very close to making it to my dock bar too.  ↩

  2. makeDoc app barks it’s getting unsupported format, but the app still takes the MD text. Not sure what’s happening there.  ↩

On my Christmas list

There are only a few things in life that make me think I need to hop on a plane tomorrow and go check something out.

This is one of them.

The LEGO Group today unveiled the world's largest LEGO model, a 1:1 replica of the LEGO Star Wars X-wing starfighter, in New York's Times Square.

Full article can be found on Star Wars.com

Getting MultiMarkdown to DOCX

One of my recurring problems I have these days is getting my notes written in MMD to a format my peers can understand. But thanks to a heads up post by @MacSparky, I believe I have this one knocked off. Craig Scott, the maker of iThoughtsHD [1], has released an update to his iOS app called makeDoc.

I’ve spent a little time with the app, and for $2.99, it is doing everything I need it do from my iPad.

  • Converts MD/MMD text into a basic .DOCX file
  • Allows me to share the new document via the Open In functionality
  • Can be emailed straight from makeDoc app.

I can see this app quickly moving to my home screen on my iPad very soon.

  1. My favorite mind mapping app.  ↩

New threads for MyGeekDaddy

It’s always amazing the work a geek will do to fix something that annoys them. My recent lack of updates has been due to my sudden plunge into learning how to hack together a WordPress theme. For quite a while I have used iThemes Flexx Professional theme. The key feature I liked about that theme was the ability to turn on, or off, the typical horizontal WordPress menu bar. [1] Unfortunately the theme was first written in the WP 2.x days and I didn’t see enough innovation to justify purchasing an updated copy.

So over time I’ve continued to look around for what I wanted in a theme for the site layout. The most recent theme I was using was from a new [2] WP theme developer called Themes Kult. The Symbol theme had a lot of what I was looking for, except for a front facing widgets. I worked with the developer on getting widgets added, but he was started to take the theme down a different path. So…

Voila! I give you the MyGeekDaddy WordPress theme. [3]

Continue to look for minor tweaks over the next couple of weeks. But for now I can stop focusing on CSS tuning and get back to writing.

I’d love to hear what you think! Hit me up on Twitter at @MyGeekDaddy.

  1. I dislike that look so much, I hacked my way through learning PHP to get rid of it.  ↩

  2. Or at least new to me.  ↩

  3. I can hear the crickets in the audience right now.  ↩