Why SOPs migrate well to Markdown

Unlike marketing brochures or design-heavy reports, SOPs are content-first: numbered steps, named roles, decision tables, checklists. None of it depends on layout. The information density that makes Word feel "right" for SOP authoring (because of templates and styles) translates faithfully to Markdown headings and lists. The result is more useful in Markdown than in Word — you can actually search across hundreds of SOPs in a wiki.

Procedural structure preserved

Numbered procedure steps become Markdown ordered lists. Sub-steps nest correctly. Checkbox-style task lists (used for "operator checks") become GFM task list syntax (- [ ]) — still functional in modern wikis. RACI tables (Responsible / Accountable / Consulted / Informed) stay as GFM tables. Decision flowcharts (when authored in Word as numbered conditional steps, not as graphics) preserve their conditional structure.

Where the result lands

Confluence (paste Markdown directly), Notion (import as Markdown page), GitHub wiki (commit the .md file), MkDocs/Docusaurus (drop into the docs folder), Obsidian (open the .md). Once SOPs are in Markdown, they're version-controllable in Git — every revision has a clean diff, every author is attributed, every change is auditable. Substantial upgrade over Word's "track changes on a shared drive".