Let's face it: Writing content for the web is tiresome. WYSIWYG editors help alleviate this task, but they generally result in horrible code, or worse yet, ugly web pages.
4. Keeps the content and the visual display separate, so you cannot mess up the look of your site.
5. Write in any text editor or Markdown application you like.
6. Markdown is a joy to use!
John Gruber, the author of Markdown, puts it like this:
> The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that 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. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.
If not otherwise noted, the shown examples adhere to the [Commonmark](https://commonmark.org/help/) standard. In addition the theme supports the following extensions that [can be activated](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#goldmark) in your `hugo.toml` or are built into the theme:
- {{% badge color="darkgray" icon="fa-fw fab fa-github" %}}GFM{{% /badge %}} Extension on top of standard Markdown adhering to [GitHub Flavored Markdown](https://github.github.com/gfm/).
- {{% badge color="#888cc4" icon="fa-fw fab fa-markdown" %}}PHP{{% /badge %}} Extension on top of standard Markdown adhering to [PHP Markdown](https://michelf.ca/projects/php-markdown/extra/).
- {{% badge color="darkorange" icon="lightbulb" %}}Pants{{% /badge %}} Extension by John Gruber adhering to [SmartyPants](https://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/).
- {{% badge color="orangered" icon="fa-fw fas fa-code" %}}HTML{{% /badge %}} If the [usage of HTML](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#rendererunsafe) is allowed, the theme supports styling for further HTML elements.
In Markdown your content usually spans the whole available document width. This is called a block. Blocks are always separated by whitespace to their adjacent blocks in the resulting document.
Any text not starting with a special sign is written as normal, plain text paragraph block and must be separated to its adjacent blocks by empty lines.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, graecis denique ei vel, at duo primis mandamus.
Et legere ocurreret pri, animal tacimates complectitur ad cum. Cu eum inermis inimicus efficiendi. Labore officiis his ex, soluta officiis concludaturque ei qui, vide sensibus vim ad.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, graecis denique ei vel, at duo primis mandamus.
Et legere ocurreret pri, animal tacimates complectitur ad cum. Cu eum inermis inimicus efficiendi. Labore officiis his ex, soluta officiis concludaturque ei qui, vide sensibus vim ad.
A good idea is to structure your content using headings and subheadings. HTML-headings from `h1` through `h6` are constructed with a `#` for each level.
To further structure your content you can add horizontal rules. They create a "thematic break" between paragraph blocks. In Markdown, you can create it with three consecutive dashes `---`.
Et legere ocurreret pri, animal tacimates complectitur ad cum. Cu eum inermis inimicus efficiendi. Labore officiis his ex, soluta officiis concludaturque ei qui, vide sensibus vim ad.
Et legere ocurreret pri, animal tacimates complectitur ad cum. Cu eum inermis inimicus efficiendi. Labore officiis his ex, soluta officiis concludaturque ei qui, vide sensibus vim ad.
For quoting blocks of content from another source within your document add `>` before any text you want to quote.
Blockquotes can also be nested.
````md
> Donec massa lacus, ultricies a ullamcorper in, fermentum sed augue. Nunc augue, aliquam non hendrerit ac, commodo vel nisi.
>
> > Sed adipiscing elit vitae augue consectetur a gravida nunc vehicula. Donec auctor odio non est accumsan facilisis. Aliquam id turpis in dolor tincidunt mollis ac eu diam.
>
> Mauris sit amet ligula egestas, feugiat metus tincidunt, luctus libero. Donec congue finibus tempor. Vestibulum aliquet sollicitudin erat, ut aliquet purus posuere luctus.
> Donec massa lacus, ultricies a ullamcorper in, fermentum sed augue. Nunc augue, aliquam non hendrerit ac, commodo vel nisi.
>
> > Sed adipiscing elit vitae augue consectetur a gravida nunc vehicula. Donec auctor odio non est accumsan facilisis. Aliquam id turpis in dolor tincidunt mollis ac eu diam.
>
> Mauris sit amet ligula egestas, feugiat metus tincidunt, luctus libero. Donec congue finibus tempor. Vestibulum aliquet sollicitudin erat, ut aliquet purus posuere luctus.
{{% badge color="darkgray" icon="fa-fw fab fa-github" %}}GFM{{% /badge %}} Since Hugo {{% badge color="fuchsia" icon="fa-fw fab fa-hackerrank" %}}0.132.0{{% /badge %}} GitHub styled alerts are also supported.
If you are in need of more advanced options to style your alerts, use the [notice shortcode](shortcodes/notice).
````md
> [!CAUTION]
> Advises about risks or negative outcomes of certain actions.
> [!IMPORTANT]
> Key information users need to know to achieve their goal.
> [!INFO]
> Information that users might find interesting.
> [!NOTE]
> Useful information that users should know, even when skimming content.
> [!TIP]
> Helpful advice for doing things better or more easily.
> [!WARNING]
> Urgent info that needs immediate user attention to avoid problems.
You can mark text in the predefined accent color of your stylesheet.
{{% badge color="fuchsia" icon="fa-fw fab fa-hackerrank" %}}Hugo{{% /badge %}} Since Hugo 0.126.0, you can [activate this through the _Hugo Extra Extension_](https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo-goldmark-extensions?tab=readme-ov-file#extras-extension) in your `hugo.toml`
{{% badge color="orangered" icon="fa-fw fas fa-code" %}}HTML{{% /badge %}} You can also use it by configuring Hugo for [usage of HTML](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#rendererunsafe).
````html
<mark>Parts</mark> of this text <mark>are marked!</mark>
{{% badge color="fuchsia" icon="fa-fw fab fa-hackerrank" %}}Hugo{{% /badge %}} Since Hugo 0.126.0, you can [activate this through the _Hugo Extra Extension_](https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo-goldmark-extensions?tab=readme-ov-file#extras-extension) in your `hugo.toml`
````md
The ++hot, new++ stuff
````
{{% badge color="orangered" icon="fa-fw fas fa-code" %}}HTML{{% /badge %}} You can also use it by configuring Hugo for [usage of HTML](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#rendererunsafe).
{{% badge color="darkgray" icon="fa-fw fab fa-github" %}}GFM{{% /badge %}} You can do strikethroughs by enclosing text with two tildes `~~`. See [Hugo's documentation remarks](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#extras) if you want to use this together with the subscript syntax.
{{% badge color="darkorange" icon="lightbulb" %}}Pants{{% /badge %}} You can combine multiple punctuation characters to single typographic entities. This will only be applied to text outside of code blocks or inline code.
You can also use subscript and superscript text. For more complex stuff, you can use the [`math` shortcode](shortcodes/math).
{{% badge color="fuchsia" icon="fa-fw fab fa-hackerrank" %}}Hugo{{% /badge %}} Since Hugo 0.126.0, you can [activate this through the _Hugo Extra Extension_](https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo-goldmark-extensions?tab=readme-ov-file#extras-extension) in your `hugo.toml`
````md
How many liters H~2~O fit into 1dm^3^?
````
{{% badge color="orangered" icon="fa-fw fas fa-code" %}}HTML{{% /badge %}} You can also use it by configuring Hugo for [usage of HTML](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#rendererunsafe).
{{% badge color="darkgray" icon="fa-fw fab fa-github" %}}GFM{{% /badge %}} You can add task lists resulting in checked or unchecked non-clickable items
{{% badge color="#888cc4" icon="fa-fw fab fa-markdown" %}}PHP{{% /badge %}} Definition lists are made of terms and definitions of these terms, much like in a dictionary.
A definition list in Markdown Extra is made of a single-line term followed by a colon and the definition for that term. You can also associate more than one term to a definition.
{{% badge color="darkgray" icon="fa-fw fab fa-github" %}}GFM{{% /badge %}} You can also add a language specifier directly after the opening fence, ` ```js `, and syntax highlighting will automatically be applied according to the selected language in the rendered HTML.
{{% badge color="darkgray" icon="fa-fw fab fa-github" %}}GFM{{% /badge %}} You can create tables by adding pipes as dividers between each cell, and by adding a line of dashes (also separated by bars) beneath the header. Note that the pipes do not need to be vertically aligned.
Links can be simplyfied for recurring reuse by using a reference ID to later define the URL location. This simplyfies writing if you want to use a link more than once in a document.
{{% badge color="#888cc4" icon="fa-fw fab fa-markdown" %}}PHP{{% /badge %}} Footnotes work mostly like reference-style links. A footnote is made of two things, a marker in the text that will become a superscript number and a footnote definition that will be placed in a list of footnotes.
Usually the list of footnotes will be shown at the end of your document. If we use a footnote in a notice box it will instead be listed at the end of its box.
Footnotes can contain block elements, which means that you can put multiple paragraphs, lists, blockquotes and so on in a footnote. It works the same as for list items, just indent the following paragraphs by four spaces in the footnote definition.
Images can also be linked by reference ID to later define the URL location. This simplyfies writing if you want to use an image more than once in a document.
{{% badge color="#7dc903" icon="fa-fw fas fa-puzzle-piece" %}}Relearn{{% /badge %}} This theme allows additional non-standard formatting by setting query parameter at the end of the image URL. The default [behavior is configurable](cont/imageeffects) through your `hugo.toml` or frontmatter parameter.
If you want to wrap an image in a link and `lightbox=true` is your default setting, you have to explicitly disable the lightbox to avoid it to hijacking your link like:
