Markdown

Topic overview

Relevant course modules

• Week 2

Markdown syntax

The “extended syntax” options below are not supported by all interpreters, but they are by most, such as GitHub-flavored Markdown.

Syntax	Result
*italic*	italic (alternative: single underscore _)
**bold**	bold (alternative: double underscore __)
<https://website.com>	Clickable link: https://website.com
[link text](website.com)	Link with custom text: link text
	Figure
# My Title	Header level 1 (largest)
## My Section	Header level 2
### My Subsection	Header level 3 – and so forth
- List item - Another item - Third item	Bulleted (unordered) list
1. List item 1. Another item 1. Third item	Numbered (ordered) list (numbering will be automatic)
`inline code`	inline code formatting
``` or 4 leading spaces	Start/end of generic code block (``` is extended syntax)
```bash	Start of bash-formatted code block (end with ```)
---	Horizontal rule (line)
> Text	Blockquote (think quoted text in email)
blank line	New paragraph (white space between lines)
two spaces at end of line	Force a line break. ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
~~strikethrough~~	strikethrough (extended syntax)
Footnote ref[^1]	Footnote ref1 (extended syntax)
[^1]: Text	The actual footnote (extended syntax)

Whitespace

• Markdown generally ignores single line breaks: use two spaces at the end of a line to force a line break, or when appropriate, leave a blank line to start a new paragraph.

• Multiple consecutive blank lines (or spaces) will be treated the same as a single blank line (or space). For extra vertical whitespace, use the HTML tag <br>, each of which forces a new line break.

Tables

Note that the vertical bars | don’t have to be aligned.

| blabla | blabla |
|———–|———–|
| blabla | blabla |
| blabla | blabla |

blabla	blabla
blabla	blabla
blabla	blabla

HTML

Most Markdown interpreters accept HTML syntax. Some simple examples:

• Figures – a centered figure using 50% of the page width:

  <p align="center">
  <img src=my.png width=50%>
  </p>

• Text colors:

  inline <span style="color:red">colored</span> text

  inline colored text

• Other:

Syntax	Result
superscript<sup>2</sup>	superscript2
superscript<sub>2</sub>	subscript2
<br>	linebreak / empty line
<!-- text -->	comment

Rendering

• To render Markdown files, i.e. convert them to a format like HTML or PDF, use Pandoc:

pandoc README.md > README.html
pandoc -o README.pdf README.md

• GitHub will automatically show rendered versions of Markdown files.
• In VS Code, when editing a Markdown file, click *Open Preview to the Side* to see a preview.