previous

Bonus Tools

Congratulations on making it this far! You now know most of markdown. There are a couple of final things to do (if you want to), and you should be on your way!

Note: Not everything here works with basic markdown.

Line breaks

If you want to include a random line break in your file, just type:

******

Comments

Because markdown works so easily with HTML, you can use HTML tags as makeshift comments. This may not work everywhere, but it does work in GitHub and other places. This is the syntax for doing this:

This is dummy text <this is a comment>

Line breaks

Normally, markdown does not automatically create line breaks. So typing the following lines:

This 
is 
one 
line!

Will have the same output as:

This is one line!

To create a small newline, just keep two spaces after your line, like so:

This is one line__ <The underscores represent spaces here.>
This is another!

To create a big newline (which is used more often and in between paragraphs), just keep a blank line between paragraphs (this is what we have been doing this entire time).

This is one line!

Not only is this another new line, it's also another PARAGRAPH!

Syntax Highlighting

On certain flavors of markdown, you can add syntax highlighting by putting the name of the language after the three tildes (/```).

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    cout << "This text should be highlighted like C++ sometimes!" << endl;
}

Tables

To insert tables, simply use pipes (

). Put three or more hyphens (-) after the header to add cells. So this:

| Header | Body |
| --- | --- |
| Italics| Formatting |
| Bold | Formatting |

will look like this:

Header	Body
Italics	Formatting
Bold	Formatting

Tables can be expanded.

Footnotes

Creating a footnote is the same as creating a re-usable link, but with ^ before the footnote name. For instance,

This is a footnote.[^1]

[^1]: A footnote can have multiple paragraphs.
    Indent the paragraphs that are to be included in the footnote.

Will look like this:

This is a footnote.¹

Strikethrough and Highlighting

To strike something through, follow this syntax:

~~Words that need to be striked through~~ Words that are normal

To highlight something, follow this syntax:

==Highlighted words== normal words, or, since some flavors of markdown don't support this, use the html tag liks this:
<mark> Highlighted words </mark> normal words

Words that need to be striked through Words that are normal
==Highlighted words== normal words (unfortunately, GitHub Flavored Markdown does not support highlighting)
Highlighted words normal words

Task Lists

If, for some reason, you want to include a static task list, you can follow this syntax:

- [ ] This task is not done.
- [x] This task is!
- [ ] This task is not.
- [ ] neither is this.

which will look like this:

• This task is not done.
• This task is!
• This task is not.
• neither is this.

Exercises

1. Insert a line break below this section.
2. Comment out the following line: This line should be commented out!
3. Add the following line breaks:
   This should be on one line. This should be on another.
4. Add a table with the following heading: (food, type) and the following pairs: (eggs, dairy), (chicken, meat), (broccoli, vegetables).
5. Make the following code have the same syntax highlighting as C (programming language).

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("This should look like C!\n");
}

1. Strike this text through.
2. Add a task list with three completed tasks and two uncompleted ones.

---

There is a lot more to markdown!

There are a lot more flavors of markdown, and a lot more things you can do with it. Markdown is not something one spends years studying, but investing ten or twenty minutes into learning it can be very useful.

1. A footnote can have multiple paragraphs. Indent the paragraphs that are to be included in the footnote. ↩