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- <h1>Markdown: Basics</h1>
- <ul id="ProjectSubmenu">
- <li><a href="/projects/markdown/" title="Markdown Project Page">Main</a></li>
- <li><a class="selected" title="Markdown Basics">Basics</a></li>
- <li><a href="/projects/markdown/syntax" title="Markdown Syntax Documentation">Syntax</a></li>
- <li><a href="/projects/markdown/license" title="Pricing and License Information">License</a></li>
- <li><a href="/projects/markdown/dingus" title="Online Markdown Web Form">Dingus</a></li>
- </ul>
- <h2>Getting the Gist of Markdown's Formatting Syntax</h2>
- <p>This page offers a brief overview of what it's like to use Markdown.
- The <a href="/projects/markdown/syntax" title="Markdown Syntax">syntax page</a> provides complete, detailed documentation for
- every feature, but Markdown should be very easy to pick up simply by
- looking at a few examples of it in action. The examples on this page
- are written in a before/after style, showing example syntax and the
- HTML output produced by Markdown.</p>
- <p>It's also helpful to simply try Markdown out; the <a href="/projects/markdown/dingus" title="Markdown Dingus">Dingus</a> is a
- web application that allows you type your own Markdown-formatted text
- and translate it to XHTML.</p>
- <p><strong>Note:</strong> This document is itself written using Markdown; you
- can <a href="/projects/markdown/basics.text">see the source for it by adding '.text' to the URL</a>.</p>
- <h2>Paragraphs, Headers, Blockquotes</h2>
- <p>A paragraph is simply one or more consecutive lines of text, separated
- by one or more blank lines. (A blank line is any line that looks like a
- blank line -- a line containing nothing spaces or tabs is considered
- blank.) Normal paragraphs should not be intended with spaces or tabs.</p>
- <p>Markdown offers two styles of headers: <em>Setext</em> and <em>atx</em>.
- Setext-style headers for <code><h1></code> and <code><h2></code> are created by
- "underlining" with equal signs (<code>=</code>) and hyphens (<code>-</code>), respectively.
- To create an atx-style header, you put 1-6 hash marks (<code>#</code>) at the
- beginning of the line -- the number of hashes equals the resulting
- HTML header level.</p>
- <p>Blockquotes are indicated using email-style '<code>></code>' angle brackets.</p>
- <p>Markdown:</p>
- <pre><code>A First Level Header
- ====================
- A Second Level Header
- ---------------------
- Now is the time for all good men to come to
- the aid of their country. This is just a
- regular paragraph.
- The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
- dog's back.
- ### Header 3
- > This is a blockquote.
- >
- > This is the second paragraph in the blockquote.
- >
- > ## This is an H2 in a blockquote
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><h1>A First Level Header</h1>
- <h2>A Second Level Header</h2>
- <p>Now is the time for all good men to come to
- the aid of their country. This is just a
- regular paragraph.</p>
- <p>The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
- dog's back.</p>
- <h3>Header 3</h3>
- <blockquote>
- <p>This is a blockquote.</p>
-
- <p>This is the second paragraph in the blockquote.</p>
-
- <h2>This is an H2 in a blockquote</h2>
- </blockquote>
- </code></pre>
- <h3>Phrase Emphasis</h3>
- <p>Markdown uses asterisks and underscores to indicate spans of emphasis.</p>
- <p>Markdown:</p>
- <pre><code>Some of these words *are emphasized*.
- Some of these words _are emphasized also_.
- Use two asterisks for **strong emphasis**.
- Or, if you prefer, __use two underscores instead__.
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>Some of these words <em>are emphasized</em>.
- Some of these words <em>are emphasized also</em>.</p>
- <p>Use two asterisks for <strong>strong emphasis</strong>.
- Or, if you prefer, <strong>use two underscores instead</strong>.</p>
- </code></pre>
- <h2>Lists</h2>
- <p>Unordered (bulleted) lists use asterisks, pluses, and hyphens (<code>*</code>,
- <code>+</code>, and <code>-</code>) as list markers. These three markers are
- interchangable; this:</p>
- <pre><code>* Candy.
- * Gum.
- * Booze.
- </code></pre>
- <p>this:</p>
- <pre><code>+ Candy.
- + Gum.
- + Booze.
- </code></pre>
- <p>and this:</p>
- <pre><code>- Candy.
- - Gum.
- - Booze.
- </code></pre>
- <p>all produce the same output:</p>
- <pre><code><ul>
- <li>Candy.</li>
- <li>Gum.</li>
- <li>Booze.</li>
- </ul>
- </code></pre>
- <p>Ordered (numbered) lists use regular numbers, followed by periods, as
- list markers:</p>
- <pre><code>1. Red
- 2. Green
- 3. Blue
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><ol>
- <li>Red</li>
- <li>Green</li>
- <li>Blue</li>
- </ol>
- </code></pre>
- <p>If you put blank lines between items, you'll get <code><p></code> tags for the
- list item text. You can create multi-paragraph list items by indenting
- the paragraphs by 4 spaces or 1 tab:</p>
- <pre><code>* A list item.
- With multiple paragraphs.
- * Another item in the list.
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><ul>
- <li><p>A list item.</p>
- <p>With multiple paragraphs.</p></li>
- <li><p>Another item in the list.</p></li>
- </ul>
- </code></pre>
- <h3>Links</h3>
- <p>Markdown supports two styles for creating links: <em>inline</em> and
- <em>reference</em>. With both styles, you use square brackets to delimit the
- text you want to turn into a link.</p>
- <p>Inline-style links use parentheses immediately after the link text.
- For example:</p>
- <pre><code>This is an [example link](http://example.com/).
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>This is an <a href="http://example.com/">
- example link</a>.</p>
- </code></pre>
- <p>Optionally, you may include a title attribute in the parentheses:</p>
- <pre><code>This is an [example link](http://example.com/ "With a Title").
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>This is an <a href="http://example.com/" title="With a Title">
- example link</a>.</p>
- </code></pre>
- <p>Reference-style links allow you to refer to your links by names, which
- you define elsewhere in your document:</p>
- <pre><code>I get 10 times more traffic from [Google][1] than from
- [Yahoo][2] or [MSN][3].
- [1]: http://google.com/ "Google"
- [2]: http://search.yahoo.com/ "Yahoo Search"
- [3]: http://search.msn.com/ "MSN Search"
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>I get 10 times more traffic from <a href="http://google.com/"
- title="Google">Google</a> than from <a href="http://search.yahoo.com/"
- title="Yahoo Search">Yahoo</a> or <a href="http://search.msn.com/"
- title="MSN Search">MSN</a>.</p>
- </code></pre>
- <p>The title attribute is optional. Link names may contain letters,
- numbers and spaces, but are <em>not</em> case sensitive:</p>
- <pre><code>I start my morning with a cup of coffee and
- [The New York Times][NY Times].
- [ny times]: http://www.nytimes.com/
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>I start my morning with a cup of coffee and
- <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">The New York Times</a>.</p>
- </code></pre>
- <h3>Images</h3>
- <p>Image syntax is very much like link syntax.</p>
- <p>Inline (titles are optional):</p>
- <pre><code>![alt text](/path/to/img.jpg "Title")
- </code></pre>
- <p>Reference-style:</p>
- <pre><code>![alt text][id]
- [id]: /path/to/img.jpg "Title"
- </code></pre>
- <p>Both of the above examples produce the same output:</p>
- <pre><code><img src="/path/to/img.jpg" alt="alt text" title="Title" />
- </code></pre>
- <h3>Code</h3>
- <p>In a regular paragraph, you can create code span by wrapping text in
- backtick quotes. Any ampersands (<code>&</code>) and angle brackets (<code><</code> or
- <code>></code>) will automatically be translated into HTML entities. This makes
- it easy to use Markdown to write about HTML example code:</p>
- <pre><code>I strongly recommend against using any `<blink>` tags.
- I wish SmartyPants used named entities like `&mdash;`
- instead of decimal-encoded entites like `&#8212;`.
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>I strongly recommend against using any
- <code>&lt;blink&gt;</code> tags.</p>
- <p>I wish SmartyPants used named entities like
- <code>&amp;mdash;</code> instead of decimal-encoded
- entites like <code>&amp;#8212;</code>.</p>
- </code></pre>
- <p>To specify an entire block of pre-formatted code, indent every line of
- the block by 4 spaces or 1 tab. Just like with code spans, <code>&</code>, <code><</code>,
- and <code>></code> characters will be escaped automatically.</p>
- <p>Markdown:</p>
- <pre><code>If you want your page to validate under XHTML 1.0 Strict,
- you've got to put paragraph tags in your blockquotes:
- <blockquote>
- <p>For example.</p>
- </blockquote>
- </code></pre>
- <p>Output:</p>
- <pre><code><p>If you want your page to validate under XHTML 1.0 Strict,
- you've got to put paragraph tags in your blockquotes:</p>
- <pre><code>&lt;blockquote&gt;
- &lt;p&gt;For example.&lt;/p&gt;
- &lt;/blockquote&gt;
- </code></pre>
- </code></pre>
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