ronn 0.4

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+ markdown(5) -- humane markup syntax
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+ ===================================
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+
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+ ## SYNOPSIS
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+
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+ # Header 1 #
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+ ## Header 2 ##
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+ ### Header 3 ### (Hashes on right are optional)
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+ #### Header 4 ####
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+ ##### Header 5 #####
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+
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+ This is a paragraph, which is text surrounded by whitespace.
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+ Paragraphs can be on one line (or many), and can drone on for
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+ hours.
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+
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+ [Reference style links][1] and [inline links](http://example.com)
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+ [1]: http://example.com "Title is optional"
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+
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+ Inline markup like _italics_, **bold**, and `code()`.
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+
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+ ![picture alt](/images/photo.jpeg "Title is optional")
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+
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+ > Blockquotes are like quoted text in email replies
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+ >> And, they can be nested
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+
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+ code blocks are for preformatted
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+ text and must be indented with four spaces
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+
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+ * Bullet lists are easy too
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+ * You can
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+ * even
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+ * nest them
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+ - Another one
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+ + Another one
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+
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+ ## DESCRIPTION
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+
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+ ### Philosophy
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+
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+ Markdown is intended to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible.
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+
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+ Readability, however, is emphasized above all else. A Markdown-formatted
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+ document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking
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+ like it's been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While
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+ Markdown's syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML
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+ filters -- including [Setext] [1], [atx] [2], [Textile] [3], [reStructuredText] [4],
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+ [Grutatext] [5], and [EtText] [6] -- the single biggest source of
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+ inspiration for Markdown's syntax is the format of plain text email.
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+
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+ [1]: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/mirror/setext.html
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+ [2]: http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/atx/
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+ [3]: http://textism.com/tools/textile/
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+ [4]: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
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+ [5]: http://www.triptico.com/software/grutatxt.html
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+ [6]: http://ettext.taint.org/doc/
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+
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+ To this end, Markdown's syntax is comprised entirely of punctuation
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+ characters, which punctuation characters have been carefully chosen so
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+ as to look like what they mean. E.g., asterisks around a word actually
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+ look like \*emphasis\*. Markdown lists look like, well, lists. Even
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+ blockquotes look like quoted passages of text, assuming you've ever
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+ used email.
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+
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+ ### Inline HTML
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+
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+ Markdown's syntax is intended for one purpose: to be used as a
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+ format for *writing* for the web.
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+
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+ Markdown is not a replacement for HTML, or even close to it. Its
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+ syntax is very small, corresponding only to a very small subset of
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+ HTML tags. The idea is *not* to create a syntax that makes it easier
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+ to insert HTML tags. In my opinion, HTML tags are already easy to
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+ insert. The idea for Markdown is to make it easy to read, write, and
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+ edit prose. HTML is a *publishing* format; Markdown is a *writing*
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+ format. Thus, Markdown's formatting syntax only addresses issues that
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+ can be conveyed in plain text.
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+
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+ For any markup that is not covered by Markdown's syntax, you simply
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+ use HTML itself. There's no need to preface it or delimit it to
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+ indicate that you're switching from Markdown to HTML; you just use
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+ the tags.
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+
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+ The only restrictions are that block-level HTML elements -- e.g. `<div>`,
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+ `<table>`, `<pre>`, `<p>`, etc. -- must be separated from surrounding
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+ content by blank lines, and the start and end tags of the block should
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+ not be indented with tabs or spaces. Markdown is smart enough not
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+ to add extra (unwanted) `<p>` tags around HTML block-level tags.
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+
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+ For example, to add an HTML table to a Markdown article:
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+
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+ This is a regular paragraph.
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+
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+ <table>
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+ <tr>
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+ <td>Foo</td>
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+ </tr>
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+ </table>
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+
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+ This is another regular paragraph.
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+
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+ Note that Markdown formatting syntax is not processed within block-level
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+ HTML tags. E.g., you can't use Markdown-style `*emphasis*` inside an
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+ HTML block.
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+
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+ Span-level HTML tags -- e.g. `<span>`, `<cite>`, or `<del>` -- can be
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+ used anywhere in a Markdown paragraph, list item, or header. If you
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+ want, you can even use HTML tags instead of Markdown formatting; e.g. if
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+ you'd prefer to use HTML `<a>` or `<img>` tags instead of Markdown's
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+ link or image syntax, go right ahead.
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+
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+ Unlike block-level HTML tags, Markdown syntax *is* processed within
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+ span-level tags.
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+
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+ ### Automatic Escaping for Special Characters
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+
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+ In HTML, there are two characters that demand special treatment: `<`
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+ and `&`. Left angle brackets are used to start tags; ampersands are
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+ used to denote HTML entities. If you want to use them as literal
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+ characters, you must escape them as entities, e.g. `&lt;`, and
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+ `&amp;`.
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+
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+ Ampersands in particular are bedeviling for web writers. If you want to
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+ write about 'AT&T', you need to write '`AT&amp;T`'. You even need to
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+ escape ampersands within URLs. Thus, if you want to link to:
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+
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+ http://images.google.com/images?num=30&q=larry+bird
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+
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+ you need to encode the URL as:
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+
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+ http://images.google.com/images?num=30&amp;q=larry+bird
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+
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+ in your anchor tag `href` attribute. Needless to say, this is easy to
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+ forget, and is probably the single most common source of HTML validation
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+ errors in otherwise well-marked-up web sites.
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+
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+ Markdown allows you to use these characters naturally, taking care of
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+ all the necessary escaping for you. If you use an ampersand as part of
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+ an HTML entity, it remains unchanged; otherwise it will be translated
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+ into `&amp;`.
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+
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+ So, if you want to include a copyright symbol in your article, you can write:
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+
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+ &copy;
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+
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+ and Markdown will leave it alone. But if you write:
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+
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+ AT&T
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+
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+ Markdown will translate it to:
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+
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+ AT&amp;T
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+
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+ Similarly, because Markdown supports [inline HTML](#html), if you use
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+ angle brackets as delimiters for HTML tags, Markdown will treat them as
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+ such. But if you write:
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+
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+ 4 < 5
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+
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+ Markdown will translate it to:
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+
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+ 4 &lt; 5
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+
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+ However, inside Markdown code spans and blocks, angle brackets and
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+ ampersands are *always* encoded automatically. This makes it easy to use
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+ Markdown to write about HTML code. (As opposed to raw HTML, which is a
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+ terrible format for writing about HTML syntax, because every single `<`
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+ and `&` in your example code needs to be escaped.)
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+
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+ ## BLOCK ELEMENTS
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+
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+ ### Paragraphs and Line Breaks
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+
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+ A paragraph is simply one or more consecutive lines of text, separated
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+ by one or more blank lines. (A blank line is any line that looks like a
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+ blank line -- a line containing nothing but spaces or tabs is considered
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+ blank.) Normal paragraphs should not be indented with spaces or tabs.
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+
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+ The implication of the "one or more consecutive lines of text" rule is
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+ that Markdown supports "hard-wrapped" text paragraphs. This differs
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+ significantly from most other text-to-HTML formatters (including Movable
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+ Type's "Convert Line Breaks" option) which translate every line break
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+ character in a paragraph into a `<br />` tag.
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+
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+ When you *do* want to insert a `<br />` break tag using Markdown, you
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+ end a line with two or more spaces, then type return.
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+
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+ Yes, this takes a tad more effort to create a `<br />`, but a simplistic
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+ "every line break is a `<br />`" rule wouldn't work for Markdown.
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+ Markdown's email-style [blockquoting][bq] and multi-paragraph [list items][l]
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+ work best -- and look better -- when you format them with hard breaks.
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+
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+ [bq]: #blockquote
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+ [l]: #list
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+
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+ ### Headers
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+
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+ Markdown supports two styles of headers, [Setext] [1] and [atx] [2].
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+
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+ Setext-style headers are "underlined" using equal signs (for first-level
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+ headers) and dashes (for second-level headers). For example:
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+
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+ This is an H1
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+ =============
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+
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+ This is an H2
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+ -------------
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+
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+ Any number of underlining `=`'s or `-`'s will work.
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+
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+ Atx-style headers use 1-6 hash characters at the start of the line,
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+ corresponding to header levels 1-6. For example:
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+
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+ # This is an H1
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+
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+ ## This is an H2
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+
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+ ###### This is an H6
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+
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+ Optionally, you may "close" atx-style headers. This is purely
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+ cosmetic -- you can use this if you think it looks better. The
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+ closing hashes don't even need to match the number of hashes
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+ used to open the header. (The number of opening hashes
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+ determines the header level.) :
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+
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+ # This is an H1 #
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+
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+ ## This is an H2 ##
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+
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+ ### This is an H3 ######
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+
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+ ### Blockquotes
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+
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+ Markdown uses email-style `>` characters for blockquoting. If you're
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+ familiar with quoting passages of text in an email message, then you
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+ know how to create a blockquote in Markdown. It looks best if you hard
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+ wrap the text and put a `>` before every line:
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+
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+ > This is a blockquote with two paragraphs. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
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+ > consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus.
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+ > Vestibulum enim wisi, viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus.
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+ >
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+ > Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit. Suspendisse
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+ > id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
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+
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+ Markdown allows you to be lazy and only put the `>` before the first
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+ line of a hard-wrapped paragraph:
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+
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+ > This is a blockquote with two paragraphs. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
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+ consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus.
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+ Vestibulum enim wisi, viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus.
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+
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+ > Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit. Suspendisse
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+ id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
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+
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+ Blockquotes can be nested (i.e. a blockquote-in-a-blockquote) by
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+ adding additional levels of `>`:
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+
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+ > This is the first level of quoting.
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+ >
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+ > > This is nested blockquote.
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+ >
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+ > Back to the first level.
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+
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+ Blockquotes can contain other Markdown elements, including headers, lists,
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+ and code blocks:
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+
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+ > ## This is a header.
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+ >
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+ > 1. This is the first list item.
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+ > 2. This is the second list item.
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+ >
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+ > Here's some example code:
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+ >
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+ > return shell_exec("echo $input | $markdown_script");
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+
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+ Any decent text editor should make email-style quoting easy. For
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+ example, with BBEdit, you can make a selection and choose Increase
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+ Quote Level from the Text menu.
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+
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+ ### Lists
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+
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+ Markdown supports ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists.
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+
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+ Unordered lists use asterisks, pluses, and hyphens -- interchangably
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+ -- as list markers:
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+
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+ * Red
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+ * Green
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+ * Blue
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+
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+ is equivalent to:
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+
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+ + Red
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+ + Green
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+ + Blue
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+
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+ and:
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+
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+ - Red
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+ - Green
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+ - Blue
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+
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+ Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods:
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+
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+ 1. Bird
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+ 2. McHale
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+ 3. Parish
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+
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+ It's important to note that the actual numbers you use to mark the
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+ list have no effect on the HTML output Markdown produces. The HTML
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+ Markdown produces from the above list is:
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+
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+ <ol>
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+ <li>Bird</li>
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+ <li>McHale</li>
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+ <li>Parish</li>
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+ </ol>
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+
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+ If you instead wrote the list in Markdown like this:
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+
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+ 1. Bird
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+ 1. McHale
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+ 1. Parish
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+
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+ or even:
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+
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+ 3. Bird
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+ 1. McHale
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+ 8. Parish
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+
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+ you'd get the exact same HTML output. The point is, if you want to,
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+ you can use ordinal numbers in your ordered Markdown lists, so that
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+ the numbers in your source match the numbers in your published HTML.
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+ But if you want to be lazy, you don't have to.
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+
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+ If you do use lazy list numbering, however, you should still start the
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+ list with the number 1. At some point in the future, Markdown may support
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+ starting ordered lists at an arbitrary number.
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+
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+ List markers typically start at the left margin, but may be indented by
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+ up to three spaces. List markers must be followed by one or more spaces
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+ or a tab.
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+
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+ To make lists look nice, you can wrap items with hanging indents:
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+
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+ * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
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+ Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus. Vestibulum enim wisi,
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+ viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus.
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+ * Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit.
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+ Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
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+
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+ But if you want to be lazy, you don't have to:
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+
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+ * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
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+ Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus. Vestibulum enim wisi,
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+ viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus.
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+ * Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit.
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+ Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
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+
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+ If list items are separated by blank lines, Markdown will wrap the
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+ items in `<p>` tags in the HTML output. For example, this input:
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+
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+ * Bird
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+ * Magic
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+
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+ will turn into:
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+
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+ <ul>
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+ <li>Bird</li>
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+ <li>Magic</li>
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+ </ul>
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+
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+ But this:
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+
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+ * Bird
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+
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+ * Magic
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+
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+ will turn into:
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+
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+ <ul>
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+ <li><p>Bird</p></li>
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+ <li><p>Magic</p></li>
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+ </ul>
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+
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+ List items may consist of multiple paragraphs. Each subsequent
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+ paragraph in a list item must be indented by either 4 spaces
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+ or one tab:
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+
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+ 1. This is a list item with two paragraphs. Lorem ipsum dolor
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+ sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam hendrerit
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+ mi posuere lectus.
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+
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+ Vestibulum enim wisi, viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet
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+ vitae, risus. Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum
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+ sit amet velit.
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+
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+ 2. Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
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+
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+ It looks nice if you indent every line of the subsequent
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+ paragraphs, but here again, Markdown will allow you to be
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+ lazy:
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+
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+ * This is a list item with two paragraphs.
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+
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+ This is the second paragraph in the list item. You're
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+ only required to indent the first line. Lorem ipsum dolor
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+ sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
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+
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+ * Another item in the same list.
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+
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+ To put a blockquote within a list item, the blockquote's `>`
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+ delimiters need to be indented:
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+
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+ * A list item with a blockquote:
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+
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+ > This is a blockquote
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+ > inside a list item.
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+
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+ To put a code block within a list item, the code block needs
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+ to be indented *twice* -- 8 spaces or two tabs:
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+
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+ * A list item with a code block:
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+
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+ <code goes here>
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+
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+
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+ It's worth noting that it's possible to trigger an ordered list by
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+ accident, by writing something like this:
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+
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+ 1986. What a great season.
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+
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+ In other words, a *number-period-space* sequence at the beginning of a
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+ line. To avoid this, you can backslash-escape the period:
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+
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+ 1986\. What a great season.
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+
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+ ### Code Blocks
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+
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+ Pre-formatted code blocks are used for writing about programming or
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+ markup source code. Rather than forming normal paragraphs, the lines
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+ of a code block are interpreted literally. Markdown wraps a code block
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+ in both `<pre>` and `<code>` tags.
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+
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+ To produce a code block in Markdown, simply indent every line of the
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+ block by at least 4 spaces or 1 tab. For example, given this input:
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+
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+ This is a normal paragraph:
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+
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+ This is a code block.
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+
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+ Markdown will generate:
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+
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+ <p>This is a normal paragraph:</p>
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+
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+ <pre><code>This is a code block.
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+ </code></pre>
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+
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+ One level of indentation -- 4 spaces or 1 tab -- is removed from each
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+ line of the code block. For example, this:
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+
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+ Here is an example of AppleScript:
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+
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+ tell application "Foo"
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+ beep
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+ end tell
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+
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+ will turn into:
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+
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+ <p>Here is an example of AppleScript:</p>
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+
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+ <pre><code>tell application "Foo"
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+ beep
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+ end tell
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+ </code></pre>
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+
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+ A code block continues until it reaches a line that is not indented
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+ (or the end of the article).
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+
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+ Within a code block, ampersands (`&`) and angle brackets (`<` and `>`)
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+ are automatically converted into HTML entities. This makes it very
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+ easy to include example HTML source code using Markdown -- just paste
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+ it and indent it, and Markdown will handle the hassle of encoding the
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+ ampersands and angle brackets. For example, this:
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+
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+ <div class="footer">
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+ &copy; 2004 Foo Corporation
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+ </div>
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+
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+ will turn into:
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+
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+ <pre><code>&lt;div class="footer"&gt;
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+ &amp;copy; 2004 Foo Corporation
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+ &lt;/div&gt;
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+ </code></pre>
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+
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+ Regular Markdown syntax is not processed within code blocks. E.g.,
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+ asterisks are just literal asterisks within a code block. This means
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+ it's also easy to use Markdown to write about Markdown's own syntax.
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+
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+
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+
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+ ### Horizontal Rules
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+
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+ You can produce a horizontal rule tag (`<hr />`) by placing three or
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+ more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on a line by themselves. If you
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+ wish, you may use spaces between the hyphens or asterisks. Each of the
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+ following lines will produce a horizontal rule:
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+
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+ * * *
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+
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+ ***
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+
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+ *****
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+
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+ - - -
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+
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+ ---------------------------------------
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+
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+
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+ ## SPAN ELEMENTS
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+
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+ ### Links
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+
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+ Markdown supports two style of links: *inline* and *reference*.
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+
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+ In both styles, the link text is delimited by [square brackets].
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+
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+ To create an inline link, use a set of regular parentheses immediately
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+ after the link text's closing square bracket. Inside the parentheses,
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+ put the URL where you want the link to point, along with an *optional*
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+ title for the link, surrounded in quotes. For example:
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+
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+ This is [an example](http://example.com/ "Title") inline link.
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+
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+ [This link](http://example.net/) has no title attribute.
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+
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+ Will produce:
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+
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+ <p>This is <a href="http://example.com/" title="Title">
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+ an example</a> inline link.</p>
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+
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+ <p><a href="http://example.net/">This link</a> has no
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+ title attribute.</p>
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+
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+ If you're referring to a local resource on the same server, you can
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+ use relative paths:
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+
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+ See my [About](/about/) page for details.
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+
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+ Reference-style links use a second set of square brackets, inside
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+ which you place a label of your choosing to identify the link:
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+
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+ This is [an example][id] reference-style link.
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+
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+ You can optionally use a space to separate the sets of brackets:
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+
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+ This is [an example] [id] reference-style link.
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+
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+ Then, anywhere in the document, you define your link label like this,
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+ on a line by itself:
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+
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+ [id]: http://example.com/ "Optional Title Here"
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+
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+ That is:
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+
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+ * Square brackets containing the link identifier (optionally
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+ indented from the left margin using up to three spaces);
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+ * followed by a colon;
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+ * followed by one or more spaces (or tabs);
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+ * followed by the URL for the link;
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+ * optionally followed by a title attribute for the link, enclosed
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+ in double or single quotes, or enclosed in parentheses.
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+
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+ The following three link definitions are equivalent:
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+
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+ [foo]: http://example.com/ "Optional Title Here"
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+ [foo]: http://example.com/ 'Optional Title Here'
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+ [foo]: http://example.com/ (Optional Title Here)
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+
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+ **Note:** There is a known bug in Markdown.pl 1.0.1 which prevents
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+ single quotes from being used to delimit link titles.
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+
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+ The link URL may, optionally, be surrounded by angle brackets:
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+
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+ [id]: <http://example.com/> "Optional Title Here"
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+
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+ You can put the title attribute on the next line and use extra spaces
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+ or tabs for padding, which tends to look better with longer URLs:
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+
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+ [id]: http://example.com/longish/path/to/resource/here
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+ "Optional Title Here"
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+
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+ Link definitions are only used for creating links during Markdown
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+ processing, and are stripped from your document in the HTML output.
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+
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+ Link definition names may consist of letters, numbers, spaces, and
598
+ punctuation -- but they are *not* case sensitive. E.g. these two
599
+ links:
600
+
601
+ [link text][a]
602
+ [link text][A]
603
+
604
+ are equivalent.
605
+
606
+ The *implicit link name* shortcut allows you to omit the name of the
607
+ link, in which case the link text itself is used as the name.
608
+ Just use an empty set of square brackets -- e.g., to link the word
609
+ "Google" to the google.com web site, you could simply write:
610
+
611
+ [Google][]
612
+
613
+ And then define the link:
614
+
615
+ [Google]: http://google.com/
616
+
617
+ Because link names may contain spaces, this shortcut even works for
618
+ multiple words in the link text:
619
+
620
+ Visit [Daring Fireball][] for more information.
621
+
622
+ And then define the link:
623
+
624
+ [Daring Fireball]: http://daringfireball.net/
625
+
626
+ Link definitions can be placed anywhere in your Markdown document. I
627
+ tend to put them immediately after each paragraph in which they're
628
+ used, but if you want, you can put them all at the end of your
629
+ document, sort of like footnotes.
630
+
631
+ Here's an example of reference links in action:
632
+
633
+ I get 10 times more traffic from [Google] [1] than from
634
+ [Yahoo] [2] or [MSN] [3].
635
+
636
+ [1]: http://google.com/ "Google"
637
+ [2]: http://search.yahoo.com/ "Yahoo Search"
638
+ [3]: http://search.msn.com/ "MSN Search"
639
+
640
+ Using the implicit link name shortcut, you could instead write:
641
+
642
+ I get 10 times more traffic from [Google][] than from
643
+ [Yahoo][] or [MSN][].
644
+
645
+ [google]: http://google.com/ "Google"
646
+ [yahoo]: http://search.yahoo.com/ "Yahoo Search"
647
+ [msn]: http://search.msn.com/ "MSN Search"
648
+
649
+ Both of the above examples will produce the following HTML output:
650
+
651
+ <p>I get 10 times more traffic from <a href="http://google.com/"
652
+ title="Google">Google</a> than from
653
+ <a href="http://search.yahoo.com/" title="Yahoo Search">Yahoo</a>
654
+ or <a href="http://search.msn.com/" title="MSN Search">MSN</a>.</p>
655
+
656
+ For comparison, here is the same paragraph written using
657
+ Markdown's inline link style:
658
+
659
+ I get 10 times more traffic from [Google](http://google.com/ "Google")
660
+ than from [Yahoo](http://search.yahoo.com/ "Yahoo Search") or
661
+ [MSN](http://search.msn.com/ "MSN Search").
662
+
663
+ The point of reference-style links is not that they're easier to
664
+ write. The point is that with reference-style links, your document
665
+ source is vastly more readable. Compare the above examples: using
666
+ reference-style links, the paragraph itself is only 81 characters
667
+ long; with inline-style links, it's 176 characters; and as raw HTML,
668
+ it's 234 characters. In the raw HTML, there's more markup than there
669
+ is text.
670
+
671
+ With Markdown's reference-style links, a source document much more
672
+ closely resembles the final output, as rendered in a browser. By
673
+ allowing you to move the markup-related metadata out of the paragraph,
674
+ you can add links without interrupting the narrative flow of your
675
+ prose.
676
+
677
+ ### Emphasis
678
+
679
+ Markdown treats asterisks (`*`) and underscores (`_`) as indicators of
680
+ emphasis. Text wrapped with one `*` or `_` will be wrapped with an
681
+ HTML `<em>` tag; double `*`'s or `_`'s will be wrapped with an HTML
682
+ `<strong>` tag. E.g., this input:
683
+
684
+ *single asterisks*
685
+
686
+ _single underscores_
687
+
688
+ **double asterisks**
689
+
690
+ __double underscores__
691
+
692
+ will produce:
693
+
694
+ <em>single asterisks</em>
695
+
696
+ <em>single underscores</em>
697
+
698
+ <strong>double asterisks</strong>
699
+
700
+ <strong>double underscores</strong>
701
+
702
+ You can use whichever style you prefer; the lone restriction is that
703
+ the same character must be used to open and close an emphasis span.
704
+
705
+ Emphasis can be used in the middle of a word:
706
+
707
+ un*frigging*believable
708
+
709
+ But if you surround an `*` or `_` with spaces, it'll be treated as a
710
+ literal asterisk or underscore.
711
+
712
+ To produce a literal asterisk or underscore at a position where it
713
+ would otherwise be used as an emphasis delimiter, you can backslash
714
+ escape it:
715
+
716
+ \*this text is surrounded by literal asterisks\*
717
+
718
+
719
+ ### Code
720
+
721
+ To indicate a span of code, wrap it with backtick quotes (`` ` ``).
722
+ Unlike a pre-formatted code block, a code span indicates code within a
723
+ normal paragraph. For example:
724
+
725
+ Use the `printf()` function.
726
+
727
+ will produce:
728
+
729
+ <p>Use the <code>printf()</code> function.</p>
730
+
731
+ To include a literal backtick character within a code span, you can use
732
+ multiple backticks as the opening and closing delimiters:
733
+
734
+ ``There is a literal backtick (`) here.``
735
+
736
+ which will produce this:
737
+
738
+ <p><code>There is a literal backtick (`) here.</code></p>
739
+
740
+ The backtick delimiters surrounding a code span may include spaces --
741
+ one after the opening, one before the closing. This allows you to place
742
+ literal backtick characters at the beginning or end of a code span:
743
+
744
+ A single backtick in a code span: `` ` ``
745
+
746
+ A backtick-delimited string in a code span: `` `foo` ``
747
+
748
+ will produce:
749
+
750
+ <p>A single backtick in a code span: <code>`</code></p>
751
+
752
+ <p>A backtick-delimited string in a code span: <code>`foo`</code></p>
753
+
754
+ With a code span, ampersands and angle brackets are encoded as HTML
755
+ entities automatically, which makes it easy to include example HTML
756
+ tags. Markdown will turn this:
757
+
758
+ Please don't use any `<blink>` tags.
759
+
760
+ into:
761
+
762
+ <p>Please don't use any <code>&lt;blink&gt;</code> tags.</p>
763
+
764
+ You can write this:
765
+
766
+ `&#8212;` is the decimal-encoded equivalent of `&mdash;`.
767
+
768
+ to produce:
769
+
770
+ <p><code>&amp;#8212;</code> is the decimal-encoded
771
+ equivalent of <code>&amp;mdash;</code>.</p>
772
+
773
+
774
+ ### Images
775
+
776
+ Admittedly, it's fairly difficult to devise a "natural" syntax for
777
+ placing images into a plain text document format.
778
+
779
+ Markdown uses an image syntax that is intended to resemble the syntax
780
+ for links, allowing for two styles: *inline* and *reference*.
781
+
782
+ Inline image syntax looks like this:
783
+
784
+ ![Alt text](/path/to/img.jpg)
785
+
786
+ ![Alt text](/path/to/img.jpg "Optional title")
787
+
788
+ That is:
789
+
790
+ * An exclamation mark: `!`;
791
+ * followed by a set of square brackets, containing the `alt`
792
+ attribute text for the image;
793
+ * followed by a set of parentheses, containing the URL or path to
794
+ the image, and an optional `title` attribute enclosed in double
795
+ or single quotes.
796
+
797
+ Reference-style image syntax looks like this:
798
+
799
+ ![Alt text][id]
800
+
801
+ Where "id" is the name of a defined image reference. Image references
802
+ are defined using syntax identical to link references:
803
+
804
+ [id]: url/to/image "Optional title attribute"
805
+
806
+ As of this writing, Markdown has no syntax for specifying the
807
+ dimensions of an image; if this is important to you, you can simply
808
+ use regular HTML `<img>` tags.
809
+
810
+
811
+ ## MISCELLANEOUS
812
+
813
+ ### Automatic Links
814
+
815
+ Markdown supports a shortcut style for creating "automatic" links for URLs and email addresses: simply surround the URL or email address with angle brackets. What this means is that if you want to show the actual text of a URL or email address, and also have it be a clickable link, you can do this:
816
+
817
+ <http://example.com/>
818
+
819
+ Markdown will turn this into:
820
+
821
+ <a href="http://example.com/">http://example.com/</a>
822
+
823
+ Automatic links for email addresses work similarly, except that
824
+ Markdown will also perform a bit of randomized decimal and hex
825
+ entity-encoding to help obscure your address from address-harvesting
826
+ spambots. For example, Markdown will turn this:
827
+
828
+ <address@example.com>
829
+
830
+ into something like this:
831
+
832
+ <a href="&#x6D;&#x61;i&#x6C;&#x74;&#x6F;:&#x61;&#x64;&#x64;&#x72;&#x65;
833
+ &#115;&#115;&#64;&#101;&#120;&#x61;&#109;&#x70;&#x6C;e&#x2E;&#99;&#111;
834
+ &#109;">&#x61;&#x64;&#x64;&#x72;&#x65;&#115;&#115;&#64;&#101;&#120;&#x61;
835
+ &#109;&#x70;&#x6C;e&#x2E;&#99;&#111;&#109;</a>
836
+
837
+ which will render in a browser as a clickable link to "address@example.com".
838
+
839
+ (This sort of entity-encoding trick will indeed fool many, if not
840
+ most, address-harvesting bots, but it definitely won't fool all of
841
+ them. It's better than nothing, but an address published in this way
842
+ will probably eventually start receiving spam.)
843
+
844
+
845
+ ### Backslash Escapes
846
+
847
+ Markdown allows you to use backslash escapes to generate literal
848
+ characters which would otherwise have special meaning in Markdown's
849
+ formatting syntax. For example, if you wanted to surround a word
850
+ with literal asterisks (instead of an HTML `<em>` tag), you can use
851
+ backslashes before the asterisks, like this:
852
+
853
+ \*literal asterisks\*
854
+
855
+ Markdown provides backslash escapes for the following characters:
856
+
857
+ \ backslash
858
+ ` backtick
859
+ * asterisk
860
+ _ underscore
861
+ {} curly braces
862
+ [] square brackets
863
+ () parentheses
864
+ # hash mark
865
+ + plus sign
866
+ - minus sign (hyphen)
867
+ . dot
868
+ ! exclamation mark
869
+
870
+ ## AUTHOR
871
+
872
+ Markdown was created by John Gruber.
873
+
874
+ Manual page by Ryan Tomayko. It's pretty much a direct copy of the
875
+ [Markdown Syntax Reference](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax),
876
+ also by John Gruber.
877
+
878
+ ## SEE ALSO
879
+
880
+ ronn(5)<br>
881
+ <http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/>