Hi everyone,
Here is a quick guide on using Markdown to format your posts, and how to use Image Grid to lay out a series of photos. You can do much of this stuff just by using the buttons along the top of a post, but for those of us that like shortcuts and having more control over how things look and feel, this is for you!
What is Markdown?
Markdown is an easy way to add formatting to your posts. Markdown is a technology used all around the internet and has been around for quite some time. Markdown is similar to the old BBCode way of doing things, but aims to make common tasks such as headings and text emphasis way easier than having to wrap anything in BBCode or HTML tags. If you’ve ever used something like Reddit or Github, those places support Markdown by default. Markdown is EVERYWHERE and is a great thing to learn how to use.
Headings
Simply put a “#” sign in front of your text to turn that into a heading. Adding additional “#” changes the weight of the heading, so “#” is for main headings, “##” for subheadings, and so on.
# This is a heading with a single "#"
## This is a sub heading (two "##")
### And down we go into further headings sizes ("###")
Text features: Bold, italics, quotes!
Similar to BBCode, you can wrap your text to give it different weights and emphasis:
Wrapping your text with single asterisks makes it italicized
Wrapping your text with ** makes it bold.
For a blockquote, use > at the front of the line(s):
This is a blockquote
Lists, tables and segments
Formatting lists and tables is also pretty easy. As you might expect, numbering things formats them automatically as a list, but you can also use “-” if you just want bullets instead of numbers.
- Ordered list item 1
- Ordered list item 2
- Unordered list item 1
- Unordered list item 2
If you want to separate some content from something else, use three dashes in a row to create a horizontal rule:
---
Becomes:
You can also make tables with Markdown, but it’s a little tricky at first. Use the pipe character “|” (usually found on keyboards above the Return/Enter key) so designate cells, and dashes to designate rows.
| Syntax | Description |
| ----------- | ----------- |
| Header | Title |
| Paragraph | Text |
Becomes:
| Syntax | Description |
|---|---|
| Header | Title |
| Paragraph | Text |
And more!
Markdown has a lot of features. Read up on it with this cheat sheet: Markdown Cheat Sheet | Markdown Guide
Image Grid
By now, you probably know how easy it is to add images here. You can drag and drop, paste from clipboard, or upload your own files through the interface. But what if you wanted your photos to tell a story, and not just show up as a list? You can, using Image Grid! Like BBCode of old, you can wrap your images in a “[grid]…[/grid]” tag to have them automatically format. I have a ton of Andy’s photos laying around so I’m going to use those.
Here are three photos wrapped in “[grid]…[/grid]”.
I use Markdown all the time for various projects. I think it’s well worth learning, at least the headings and text formatting features. It’s easy and quick to use. I hope you also find it helpful.