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March 11, 2022 Markdown Guide

Markdown is a popular way for styling content on the web. Developers often use markdown in their work, but anyone can use it to add style to their Letters on Metamorphic.

In this guide, you'll become familiar with the essentials in markdown styling on Metamorphic (and most anywhere), and be sending Letters with pizazz in no time!

Emphasis

When you want to emphasize something, simply wrap your word or phrase like below:

Emphasis format


            **bold**
            *italic*
            ~~strikethrough~~

Output

bold
italic
strikethrough

Headers

Headers are great for sections or chapters in your Letters. It's important to note the space after the "#" symbol:

Header format


            # Large
            ## Medium
            ### Small
            #### Extra small

Output

Large

Medium

Small

Extra small

Lists

Lists can be unordered (bulleted) or ordered (numbered). Remember, the space after the "*" symbol and "1." numbering is important:

Unordered list format


            * Unordered list item
            * Unordered list item
            * Unordered list item

Output

  • Unordered list item
  • Unordered list item
  • Unordered list item

Ordered list format


            1. Ordered list item
            2. Ordered list item
            3. Ordered list item

Output

  1. Ordered list item
  2. Ordered list item
  3. Ordered list item

Links

Links are a great way to share external resources through your Letters. Note our best practice of including the {:target="_blank"}{:rel="_noopener"}. This is so that links you send others will open safely in a new tab:

Link format


            [Text to link](https://www.example.com){:target="_blank"}{:rel="_noopener"}

Link output

Text to link

Quotes

"Who said that...?" Share quotes in your Letters by following the formatting below:

Quote format


            > Single line quote

Output

Single line quote

If your quote is long, then it will automatically wrap into a multi-line quote.

Code display

For this next example, I switched the display in the guide so that you can see how code is displayed (with the dark background). Using markdown for code display is a great way to share code or set something apart:

Single line format

```
Set your code here.
```

Output

Set your code here.

Using the three back ticks (`) like above also supports multi-line code display:

Multi-line format

```elixir
def metamorphic do
:hello_world
end
```

Output


          def metamorphic do
            :hello_world
          end

Wrapup

Markdown can be a fun way to add some simple styling to your Letters. Keep in mind that only the recipient will see the styled result of your markdown formatting.

Support for live previewing of your markdown while composing a new Letter is on the drawing board, and I encourage you to vote for it on the Roadmap if it's something you'd like to have.

I hope this helps you feel more comfortable with markdown and gets you excited to explore it when writing a Letter.

🖨 Mark

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