Markdown in Notepad++

I recently (recently as in about an hour ago) discovered a way to use Notepad++, my text editor of choice on Windows, to process Markdown files into html without having to jump into DOS and run do it from the command line. I’ve been trying to keep my notes in Markdown for awhile now because I like that I can easily publish them to a blog or webpage without fighting with the markup. I also like the small bit of discipline it gives to my text files and the opportunity to tinker around with scripting in the process. Since I don’t really blog that much or publish any html documents to speak of, it’s more of an affectation than a truely useful exercise. That said, I still find myself writing in Markdown with a lingering feeling that the future is all in a browser.

I also enjoy Notepad++ and, like the web, it feels more powerful and full featured that I currently use. So it keeps my attention. I also like the tabs and persistant workspace it provides while the syntax highlighting and numbered lines make some of the things I do at work (writing AutoCAD, Autolisp and AutoHotKey scripts specifically) much, much easier. I won’t go into all the details, but if you do any scripting and you are doing it in plain Notepad you really need to take a long look at what you are missing.

So, to the point! What you need to do to get