Markdown Guide

iA Presenter uses Markdown syntax to format documents. Learn the basics of Markdown in minutes—or dive in to discover more complex formatting.

Overview

John Gruber, the author of Markdown, underlines that “Markdown is intended to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible.” Readability is key:

A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.

Markdown’s syntax is comprised entirely of punctuation characters, which have been carefully chosen so as to look like what they mean. E.g., asterisks around a word actually look like emphasis. Markdown lists look like, well, lists. Even blockquotes look like quoted passages of text, assuming you’ve ever used email.

Built-in formatting commands are quicker and easier to use than manually typing the Markdown punctuation characters.

Structure

Paragraphs

A paragraph is one or more lines of text separated by one or more blank lines.

First paragraph.

Second paragraph.

By default, iA Presenter keeps normal paragraphs as spoken text in your presentation. When you indent paragraphs in the Editor, they appear on your slides instead.

You can allow a single return to start a new paragraph in Markdown settings. However, this behavior is incompatible with other websites and apps that use Markdown and is available mainly to make it compatibile with older versions of iA Writer. We recommend always separating paragraphs with a blank line.

To insert a line break within a paragraph, write two spaces or a backslash \ at the end of the line.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat\
How I wonder what you’re at!

Headings

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4
##### Heading 5
###### Heading 6

Lists

Unordered lists can use hyphens, pluses, and asterisks as list markers interchangeably:

- Red
+ Green
* Blue

Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods:

1. Red
2. Green
3. Blue

To make a task list, add a space or the letter x between square brackets after a list marker:

- [ ] Milk
- [x] Bread

To make nested lists, indent list items with a tab or at least four spaces:

- Groceries
    - [ ] Milk

To make a list item with more than one paragraph, indent additional paragraphs with a tab or four spaces. You can use extra spaces after a list marker to align the first paragraph with subsequent paragraphs:

-   First paragraph.

    Second paragraph.

-   First paragraph.    

To make lists visible in the slide, prefix the items with a tab:

⇥- [ ] Milk
⇥- Green
⇥1. Red

Blockquotes

Blockquotes are spoken text without a tab prefix:

> First level, first paragraph.
>
> > Second level, first paragraph.
>
> First level, second paragraph.

To make block quotes visible to the audience, add a tab prefix:

⇥> First level, first paragraph.
⇥>
⇥> > Second level, first paragraph.
⇥>
⇥> First level, second paragraph.

Definition Lists

⇥Markdown
⇥: A lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax.
⇥: A deliberate reduction in the selling price of retail merchandise.

Horizontal Rules

To split slides, use horizontal rules.

---

Formatting

Bold

Use double asterisks or underscores to make bold text:

**bold**
__bold__

Italic

Use single asterisks or underscores to make italic text:

*italic*
_italic_

Strikethrough

Use double tildes to ~~strikethrough~~ text:

~~strikethrough~~

Highlight

Use double equals signs to ==highlight== text:

==highlight==

Superscript

Use a caret for simple superscript without any whitespace or punctuation:

100m^2

More complicated superscript:

y^(a+b)^

Subscript

Use a tilde for simple subscript without any whitespace or punctuation:

x~z

More complicated subscript:

x~y,z~

Links

Markdown supports inline and reference links:

This is an [inline link](https://example.com).

This is a [reference link][id].

[id]: https://example.com

You can omit a reference link identifier too:

[Google][]

[Google]: https://google.com

Notes

Footnotes

Markdown supports inline and reference footnotes:

This is an inline[^Footnote text.] footnote.

This is a reference[^id] footnote.

[^id]: Footnote text.

Footnotes are grouped at the end of a slide. They’ll only be visible if the layout allows for them.

Citations

This is a statement with an attributed source[p. 23][#Doe:2006].

[#Doe:2006]: John Doe. *Some Big Fancy Book*. Vanity Press, 2006.

Use any text you want for the locator, such as p. 23, or omit it. You can use any citation key format (e.g. #Doe:2006) as long as it begins with a hash sign:

This is a statement with an attributed source[][#Doe, 2006].

Use Not Cited or notcited as the locator to include an uncited source:

[Not Cited][#Doe, 2006]

Images

In addition to Content Blocks, iA Presenter supports Markdown image syntax and HTML image tags:

![Engineering Flowchart](Flowchart.png)
<img src="Flowchart.png">

Tables

| Name | Price | Tax |
|:--|--:|--:|
| Widget | 10$ | 1$ |
| Gift | 0$ ||
[Recent Transactions]

• Enter at least one | per line
• Columns are separated with a |
• The separator between table header and content must contain only | : - and spaces
• To align a column: left :--, right --:, or center :-:
• Cell content must be in one line
• The first line of the table and the alignment/divider line must start at the beginning of the line
• To merge cells, add another | at the end of the cell

Code

Use single backticks to indicate code within a line:

Keyword `func` indicates a function in Swift programming language.

Use three or more backticks with an optional code language on the first line on a line create a fenced code block:

```swift
class Shape {
    var numberOfSides = 0
}
```

Indented code blocks are not supported.

Math

iA Presenter supports $\LaTeX$ math expressions, which are typeset using $\KaTeX$ (see supported features to learn more).

Place equations inside a paragraph using $…$ or \\(…\\):

An example of math within a paragraph $x+y^2$.

An example of math within a paragraph \(x+y^2\).

Equations can placed on their own using $$…$$ or \\[…\\]:

$$\displaystyle \frac{1}{\Bigl(\sqrt{\phi \sqrt{5}}-\phi\Bigr) e^{\frac25 \pi}} = 1+\frac{e^{-2\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-4\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-6\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-8\pi}} {1+\cdots} } } }$$

\[\displaystyle \frac{1}{\Bigl(\sqrt{\phi \sqrt{5}}-\phi\Bigr) e^{\frac25 \pi}} = 1+\frac{e^{-2\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-4\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-6\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-8\pi}} {1+\cdots} } } }\]

If you use the dollar sign syntax, leave no space between the $ and the expressions’s contents. Add a space on the outside.

Basics