using Markdown you can: - track versions with tools like git - using pandoc, you can transform it in html, pdf, latex, beamer, rtf, slidy - you are sure you are separating style from content - it can be used everywhere: using console editors like vim (or the simple nano, that I love), text editors like notepad+, gedit. I found out a very nice android app, Epstile, that uses markdown and syncs the data using dropbox. - just this morning, in the office where I'm working, there was a discussion like "this doc was saved using office 2010 or office 2007?". Using markdown, you can avoid such a mess.