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Text Format Codes

Contents:

For some general information on reStructuredText (RST) markup see lang/python/docstring.

Embedded URL Reformatting

Extract URLs from other URLs with

sed -e 's,.*https%3A,https:,; s,%2F,/,g; s,%3F,?,g; s,%3D,=,g'

Unicode

Considerable "text-only" markup can be done with Unicode characters alone, including things like overlines with combining characters. See:

Markdown

Though not exactly the original Markdown, commonmark.org provides a spec and an online renderer. Less-commonly used markups are:

  • ![alt text](url-or-filepath): in-line images.

Image Sizing

Some markdown processors do have extensions for image resizing, but this doesn't work on most systems, including GitHub. Instead, generally you need to use an inline HTML <img/> tag. See the Stack Exchange "Image Sizing" section below for more details.

Disqus

Disqus uses the following html tags:

  • Block: <br> (needs no close), <blockquote>, <p>, <pre>.
  • Links: <a href='...'>.
  • Inline: <code>, <strong>/<b>, <em>/<i>, <strike>/<s>, <span>, <caption>, <cite>, <spoiler>.

Code blocks can be done with <pre><code class="..."> with any of the following languages as class: Bash, Diff, JSON, Perl, C#, HTML/XML (tags must be encoded), Java, Python, C++, HTTP, JavaScript, Ruby, CSS Ini, PHP, SQL.

StackExchange

From the help page. Also see app/web for other SE notes.

Differences from Markdown:

  • Must have a blank line between a paragraph and following list.
  • 8-col additional indent for code blocks in lists, 4-col suggested over 3 for sublists. Additional paras in lists work.
  • Lists, code blocks work in quotes.
  • Limited subset of HTML allowed; spacing, double quotes, attribute order etc. must be correct to keep tag from being stripped.

Extras (HTML-line ones do not work in comments):

  • <s>...</s> Strikeout (line through text).
  • <kbd>...</kbd> Displays text as "key" box.
  • [tag:NAME] for a boxed link to tag NAME.
  • >! starting a line gives "spoiler" blockquote.

Code formatting is done with the standard four-space indent or triple-backticks. Syntax highlighting is automatic with default and specific language hints based on the tags. Override this for the following block or all following blocks with HTML comments that specify the SO tag or Google Prettify lang- class names:

<!-- language: lang-js -->
<!-- language: bash -->
<!-- language-all: lang-none -->

Keyboard shortcuts on selected text:

  • Ctrl-I/B: Toggle italics/bold.
  • Ctrl-L: Selected text to link.
  • Ctrl-H: cycle through header styles.
  • Ctrl-U/O: Toggle unnumbered/ordered list.
  • Ctrl-G: Insert image.

Comment-only Markup

@name will notify someone who's previously commented on the same post. Only first name is necessary; append chars from addititional names to disambiguate if necessary. Always remove spaces. If no natural first/last name, three chars minimum. Also works for post editors and the ♦ moderator who closed a question.

Links. Link text is given in quotes, or is the site name if linking to another site. Capitalization is usually preserved when generating link text.

  • [NAME.se]: NAME.stackexchange.com, if exists.
  • [ubuntu.se] Ask Ubuntu.
  • [so], [pt.so], [su], [sf], [metase], [a51], [se]: SE site.
  • [meta]: Meta site for current site.
  • [main]: Base site from meta site.
  • [edit]: "edit", edit page for post (/posts/{id}/edit).
  • [tag:tagname], [meta-tag:tagname]: Tag's page.
  • [help], [help/on-topic], [help/dont-ask], [help/behavior], [meta-help]. "help center". All links point to the main site.
  • [tour]: "tour", tour page.
  • [chat]: "{site name} Chat", chat site.
  • [ask], [answer]: How to Ask, How to Answer.

Image Sizing

The Markdown extensions for image sizing don't work, but you can use <img> tags to resize images on display if you're careful about the exact formatting. This includes properties names, the order of properties, double-quotes, and spacing; getting any of these wrong will cause the tag to be stripped.

src=""
width=""    up to 999; do not include the 'px' extension
height=""   up to 999; do not include the 'px' extension
alt=""
title=""

Working example:

<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xaqf0.png" width="200" height="100" alt="alt text" title="title text"/>

stackoverflow.blog

HTML formatting seems to be accepted. Use <code>…</code> for in-line fixed-width formatting.

Telegram

The formatting you add to messages seems to vary by client. These tests on an old version show some of the not-too-major differences.

The desktop clients offer keyboard shortcuts to format text after selecting it: Ctrl-B for bold, Ctrl-I for italic, Ctrl-Shift-M for monospace and Ctrl-K to enter a URL for a link.

Textual markup:

  • __italic__, **bold** and `monospace`
  • Multi-line code blocks can be delimited with three backticks before and after. (These need not be on separate lines.)
    • 4.11/2023-10-30: Syntax highlighting with three backticks followed by language name (no space).
  • URLs will automatically be turned into links, but to link text without showing the URL you need to use Ctrl-K as above.
  • @name will be replaced with a clickable representation of the channel user matching name (does completion).
  • #text will make text a hashtag and link to a search for that hashtag.

Discord

Similar to Markdown. Escape opening formatting symbols with \. Around mid-2023 Markdown hyperlinks were added; before that but, like Slack, just URLs made clickable.

  • Italic: _foo_, *foo*
  • Bold: **foo**
  • Underline: __foo__
  • Italic, bold and underline may combine with any of the above.
    • Italic+bold: ___foo___, **_foo_**
    • Italic+bold+underline: *__**Example 4**__*
  • Code: backticks
  • Strikethrough: ~~foo~~
  • Spoiler: ||foo||
  • Link: [foo](https://foo.com) (added sometime in 2023).
  • Timestamps: <t:1696329000:F> where the number is a Unix timestamp, and suffix is: R=relative ("in 3 hours"), t=short (HH:MM), T=long time (HH:MM:SS), d=short date, D long date, f=long date and time, F=long date w/weekday and time. Also see discordtimestamp.com.

Block formats:

  • Quote text: > (single line), >>> (all following lines until paragraph break)
  • Code block: triple-backtick

Syntax highlighting uses Highlight.js, which can be used to color code blocks. (Colors will not appear on mobile.) See [alrigh] for tricks for this.

YouTube

  • Markdown-like: *bold*, _italic_, -strikethrough text-. There must be whitespace on one side of the markup character. E.g., at the end of a sentence, outside all punctuation: ..."said *what."* .
  • Bare links only.

MediaWiki/Wikipedia Wikitext

Reference: [Wikitext].

General Inline Formatting

  • Unicode non-breaking spaces, &nbsp;, {{Nowrap| this and that}}.
  • ''italics'', '''bold''', '''''italic+bold'''''.
  • <code>computer text</code>
  • <sub>subscript</sub>, <sup>superscript</sup>.
  • <small>smaller text</small> can be useful for "small caps."
  • Math: <math>LaTeX code</math>.

General Block Formatting

  • Two newlines for paragraph break; <br/> for line break.
  • Indented paragarphs use one or more : at start of line.
  • <blockquote>...</blockquote>
  • Sections: = Level 1 =, == Level 2 ==.
  • Lists: * Level 1, ** Level 2; # for numbered lists.
  • Description lists: ; Term : Definition, or multiple definitions on new lines starting with :.

Links

  • "Free links" to pages: [[Page Name]], [[Page Name#section name]], [[#section]].
  • Renamed links: [[Page Name#section|text to display]], or [[Page Name|]] for automatic renaming (removal of parens, etc.)
  • Blending: [[Page]]es. Suppressed: [[Page]]<nowiki/>ing.
  • External links: [http://foo.com text to display].

WordPress

Comments allow limited HTML markup, as determined by the KSES filter. This may be configured differently on a per site basis, but generally will be something like the following.

<a href title>
<abbr title>
<acronym title>
<b>
<blockquote cite>
<cite>
<code>
<del datetime>
<em>
<i>
<q>
<s>
<strike>
<strong>

BB Code

BB code varies by implmentation; this covers XenForo as used by forum.vcfed.org.

  • [plain]...[/plain]: disable parsing of BBCode/links/smileys/etc.