Markdown Guide

iA Presenter uses Markdown syntax to format documents. If you know iA Writer, the majority of the concepts explained here will be familiar to you.

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 notes in your presentation. When you indent paragraphs in Editor, they will be instead be shown on your slides.

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 for compatibility 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, use a space or a letter x between square brackets after a list marker:

- [ ] Milk
- [x] Bread

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

- Groceries
    - [ ] Milk

To make a list item with more than one paragraph, indent additional paragraphs by extra fours spaces or a tab. 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 speaker notes without a tab prefix

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

To make block quotes visible, 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

Horizontal rules are use to split slides.

---

Formatting

Bold

You can use double asterisks or underscores to make bold text:

**bold**
__bold__

Italic

You can use single asterisks or underscores to make italic text:

*italic*
_italic_

Strikethrough

You can use double tildes to make ~~strikethrough~~ text:

~~strikethrough~~

Highlight

You can use double equals signs to ==highlight== text:

==highlight==

Superscript

Simple superscript, without any whitespace or punctuation:

100m^2

More complicated superscript:

y^(a+b)^

Subscript

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

Reference link identifier can be omitted:

[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 the slide. They are visible only if the layout allow them.

Citations

This is a statement that should be attributed to
its source[p. 23][#Doe:2006].

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

You can use any text you want for the locator (e.g. p. 23), and it can also be omitted. Any citation key (e.g. #Doe:2006) format is allowed, as long as it begins with a hash sign:

This is a statement that should be attributed to its 
source[][#Doe, 2006].

Use Not Cited or notcited as the locator to include a source that was not cited:

[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]

• There must be at least one | per line
• Columns are separated by |
• The separator between table header and content must contain only | : - and spaces
• To align a column: left :--, right --:, 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 additional | 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 for more info).

Equations can be placed within 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 using the dollar sign syntax, there must be no space between the $ and the contents of the expression and there must be space on the outside.

Basics