How to Markdown code on this forum?

moon6969

Doh! Undone by my obsessive dislike of automatic line/paragraph spacing!!

Thanks MaDill

Scott Sumner

I have a cheatsheet I’ve assembled for markdown specific to this forum; it isn’t all-encompassing but maybe it is of some use:

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\----------------- –> -----------------
(I like to use this one as a separator; like drawing a horizontal line; note the leading \ is important; maybe there is a better way…)

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**bold** --> bold

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*italics* --> italics

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***bold_italics*** --> bold_italics

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`red_with_grey_background` --> red_with_grey_background
(best for presenting regular expressions since everything between back-ticks (grave accents) is treated verbatim)

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~~strikeout~~ --> ~~strikeout~~

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# heading1 big ->

heading1 big

(space between # and “h” in this example is important; # must start the line)

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## heading2 ->

heading2

(space between # and “h” in this example is important; # must start the line)

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### heading3 ->

heading3

(space between # and “h” in this example is important; # must start the line)

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#### heading4 ->

heading4

(space between # and “h” in this example is important; # must start the line)

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bullet-point lists:
* bullet1
* bullet2
* bullet3
–>

bullet1
bullet2
bullet3

(note: space after * is important!)

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numbered lists:
1) one
2) two
3) three
–>

one
two
three

(note: space after ) is important!)

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a code block is indented with 4 spaces and must be preceded by a blank line:

I really have 4 spaces before me

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quote another poster:

>YOU said this

And now I’m replying to it
(note: blank line between > line and the reply is important)
–>

YOU said this

And now I’m replying to it

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links:

Very simple direct link to https://www.google.com
->
Very simple direct link to https://www.google.com

This is a simple [here](https://www.google.com) link
–>
This is a simple here link

This is a simple [here](https://www.google.com “go Google!”) link with custom hover pop-up text
->
This is a simple here link with custom hover pop-up text

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images (not links to images) embedded in the post:

![ ](http://i.imgur.com/QTHZysa.png)
->

2024 moderator update: see our more-recent FAQ: Formatting Forum Posts: embedding images from imgur no longer works reliably; but unlike in 2017, you can just paste your image directly in the Forum post without using an external host, anyway.
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glennfromiowa

@Scott_Sumner Thank you for posting this! This is the best guide to markdown I’ve ever seen - much better than the forum-provided guide. It should be posted somewhere accessible! Too bad we don’t have an active wiki anymore.

guy038

Hello @scott-sumner,

I totally agree with @glennfromiowa. Explanations, about links, that I didn’t dare to practice yet, are very clear ! Many thanks, Scott, for this neat summary ;-))

Cheers,

guy038

Scott Sumner

Ahem. Well, I’m somewhat embarrassed that the posting of mine that has generated the most interest over the past couple of years is about…markdown syntax. :-D

Here’s an addition to the above “cheatsheet”, because I recently messed up trying to embed a “video” in a posting even thought I’ve done it before (so I re-figured out the right way to do it):

-------------------

VIDEOS (not links-to-videos) EMBEDDED IN THE POST:

Note: These are actually animated-GIF files, not true video files

Create screen-capture’d video file (e.g., .MP4 with SnagIt…my preference…YMMV) showing what you want the readers of your post to see
Use online video to animated-GIF converter (e.g., https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif) to convert video (e.g. .MP4) to .GIF
Save resulting .GIF file locally (temporarily)
Upload .GIF file to image-hosting site (e.g., http://imgur.com/)
Get “markdown” link to uploaded .GIF from image-hosting site to clipboard; example: [Imgur](http://i.imgur.com/UPYeN9e.gifv)
Add ! out front, optionally delete Imgur between the [ and the ], and change gifv to gif; example: ![](http://i.imgur.com/UPYeN9e.gif)
Paste that text into a new Notepad++ Community site posting, and you should have a live-action “video” in the preview pane of your posting, and, of course, when it truly gets posted!

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The embedded “video” from the above example (courtesy of this thread–where I originally screwed up the embedding and got a link instead):

MAPJe71

Alternative for capturing GIF: ScreenToGif

PeterJones

I just saw that another trick that @Scott-Sumner taught us in some other post isn’t in his summary above.

For quoting a file, there are two methods. The first, as others (including Scott) showed above, is to indent all the lines of the file by 4 spaces – and having a blank line before and after. This will create the black box, which can actually do syntax highlighting:

\-----
normal text followed by blank line

    # this block indented four spaces
    x = os.getenv('TEMP')

\-----

will be formatted as
-----
normal text followed by blank line

# this block indented four spaces
x = os.getenv('TEMP')

-----

But you’ll notice that my example code doesn’t have the black box or code formatting. I got that through what I call the “```z trick”: prefix your file by a blank line, followed by ```z by itself on a line, followed by ``` by itself and another blank, like

\----- visual separation for my example
normal text before blank line

```z
text that doesn't have to be indented
```

more normal text, after blank line
\----- visual separation for my example

To nest them (like I did here), you can use balanced groups of more ```` ticks, followed by a different letter, like:

\----

````x

```z
blah
```

````

\----

Hope this helps clarify.

PeterJones

Looks like the ```z notation doesn’t need blank lines surrounding:

\----
````x
```z
blah
```
````
\----

renders as

----

```z
blah
```

----

V S Rawat

@Scott-Sumner

Great help.

I was always putting something wrong that was destroying the presented version.

now I am wiser with your list.

Maybe this site should give a link of your post in the message compose window.

Thanks a gig.

PeterJones

For Future Readers

The hints in this discussion are mostly still good (other than suggesting imgur, as the moderator note clarifies); however, a few years after this discussion, we added a FAQ: Formatting Forum Posts which should be used as the canonical/official guide for using Markdown on this Forum; the benefit of the FAQ is that it can and will be kept up-to-date, which is harder to do for these older discussions.