Markdown allows text to be formatted so that it is easy to read. 

Paragraphs and line breaks

To separate text into paragraphs, press return twice.

This creates a new paragraph just like you would in a word processor.

When you want to insert a line break, end the sentence with two spaces and press return. This creates a line break without creating a new paragraph.

It is the equivalent of the <br /> break tag in HTML.

Headers

Insert hashes (#) at the start of the line to create a subheading. One hash is the largest heading size, six hashes creates the smallest.  

##Use two hashes to invoke H2. This is most suitable for subheadings. 

This is H2, a medium-sized header.

###Use three hashes to invoke H3, a smaller header, suitable for sub-headings within an email.

This is H3, a slightly smaller header.

Lists

Markdown supports ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists.

You can use asterisks (*), pluses (+), and hyphens (-) interchangeably – as bullet points:

• You can use asterisks…
• …pluses…
• …and hyphens interchangeably as bullet points. Make sure your unordered list is separated from other paragraphs.

Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods:

1. Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods
2. Once again, make sure your ordered list is a separate paragraph.
3. To insert a bulleted list within a numbered list (or break up a numbered list with an image or additional text) insert four spaces before each bullet point, image or text. This will ensure that the numbered list continues afterward and does not start again at 1. 

Horizontal rules

You can produce a horizontal rule (a line) by placing three or more hyphens…

– – –

…asterisks…

***

…or underscores…

_ _ _

…on a line by themselves.

<hr />

Tables

| Col1 Header  | Col2 Header |
| -------------| ------------|
| data1        | data3       |
| data2        | data4       |
| data3        | data5       |

Links

To create an inline link, insert the text you wish to be linked in [square brackets], followed immediately by the URL within regular brackets, with no space. Example: 

[Go to FutureLearn’s website](https://www.futurelearn.com/)

[Email FutureLearn](mailto:feedback@futurelearn.com).

Markdown supports a shortcut for creating automatic links for email addresses. This means if you want to show the actual email address, and also have it be a clickable link, wrap an email address between greater than/less than symbols:

<feedback@futurelearn.com> becomes feedback@futurelearn.com.

Bold and italics

Text wrapped with one *asterisk* or _underscore_ will be italicised. 

Text wrapped with two **asterisks** or __underscores__ will be displayed as bold text.

Embed videos

Currently, the functionality only allows for videos from Youtube to be embedded on the platform.

Add anywhere within the body of text:

[embed](https://www.youtube.com/your-video-url)

YouTube videos can be embedded within steps as supplementary course content only. 

YouTube is not universally accessible worldwide. 

See our guidance on using third-party content and external content course criteria.

Inline images

Inline images are contained within the body of a step. Follow our initial instructions about how to add an inline image as an asset to an article step. 

Once an asset has been uploaded, copy the asset link and keep it somewhere safe. Go to the step where you wish the inline image to appear. Within the copy where you want the image to appear insert: 


• An exclamation mark: !
• followed by a set of square brackets, containing the alternative text for the image;
• followed by a set of parentheses, containing the URL link you coped for the asset 
• and an optional title attribute enclosed in single quotation marks (').

If you insert a URL for an image that has not been uploaded as an asset, only use images that are hosted securely. Secure images will have a URL that begins with https:// – the ‘s’ indicates a secure URL.

Expandable inline images

If there’s an important detail within an inline image you would like to make more visible to learners, use this formatting to make the image expandable:

[Click to expand](https://example.com/path/to/large-image.jpg)

Upload two image assets to make this work. The inline image should be 900 x 600 pixels and the second expandable image should be more than 900 x 600 pixels.

Avoiding markdown formatting

Markdown allows you to use backslash escapes to generate literal characters which would otherwise have special meaning in Markdown’s formatting syntax. For example, if you wanted to surround a word with *asterisks without italicising the text*, you can ||*use backslashes before the asterisks, like this||*.

Markdown provides backslash escapes for the following characters:

|| backslash

` backtick

* asterisk

_ underscore

{} curly brackets

[] square brackets

() parentheses

# hash mark

+ plus sign

– hyphen

. period

! exclamation mark

Linking to a specific section of a step

Whenever you add a ‘heading’ in Markdown, you are also creating an anchor at that point in the page that can be linked directly to. The address for this link can be ascertained by taking the step URL (not the editing address in Course Creator) and appending #heading-text-with-dashes-instead-of-spaces

This allows you to link back to specific sections of content across steps. You can use this to highlight a particular segment of a step you wish to direct learners towards, or create useful reference guides such as a simple glossary step. 

Adding a glossary 

Using the following markdown in an article step will create an easily navigable glossary for your learners.

###[A](#a) [B](#b) [C](#c) D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[ ](#top)

* * *

##A

###Apple

- Definition goes here

###Apricot

- Definition goes here

[Back to top](#top)

##B

###Banana

- Definition goes here

[Back to top](#top)

##C

###Cherry

- Definition goes here

[Back to top](#top)

Code blocks

Pre-formatted code blocks are used for writing about programming or source code. Rather than forming normal paragraphs, the lines of a code block are interpreted literally.

To produce a code block in Markdown, simply indent every line
of the block by at least 4 spaces or 1 tab.

A code block continues until it reaches a line that is not indented, or the end of the article. Within a code block, ampersands (&) and angle brackets (< and >) are automatically converted into HTML entities.

Regular Markdown syntax is not processed within code blocks. For
example, *asterisks* are just literal asterisks within a code block.
This means it’s also easy to use Markdown to write about Markdown’s
own syntax.

You can also insert code into an existing paragraph by wrapping it with backtick quotes (`).

We support syntax highlighting in over 70 languages, including Ruby, Python and Erlang. To enable syntax highlighting on a code block use the following format:

~~~ language name
  # code goes here
~~~

For example:

~~~ ruby
class Dog
 def initialize(breed, name)
 @breed = breed
 @name = name
 end

def bark
 puts 'Ruff! Ruff!'
 end
end
~~~

becomes:

Additional syntax guide

There are more options in our additional syntax guide, including mathematical symbols, subscripts and superscripts. Our Markdown Syntax Guide can be found throughout Course Creator wherever you see the following link:

Terminology on this page that you aren’t familiar with? Check out our glossary. 

Contact FutureLearn