Markdown Editor Support

Knowledge Base Software with Markdown Editor

PHPKB knowledge base software (in version 9.5 and higher) also offers markdown support so those who are comfortable with markdown syntax can easily create knowledge articles using markdown editor. It has a markdown text editor that makes editing and styling easy. You can add links, videos, images, tables and code samples in your knowledge base articles using markdown syntax.

Markdown Syntax

HTML Result

You don't have to be a developer to pick up the basics. The Markdown editor allows you to style a knowledge base document using typical formatting techniques including headings, emphasis, lists, images, and links.

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004. Markdown is aimed at making writing for the internet easier. The philosophy behind Markdown is that plain text documents should be readable without tags messing everything up, but there should still be ways to add text modifiers like lists, bold, italics, etc. It uses plain text formatting but contains inline text symbols that specify how to format the text (e.g., *bold* for bold text, or other markups for italics, indentation, headers, etc.). Markdown is a superset of HTML, any HTML file is valid Markdown. That means you can use all the features of HTML to add tables and other elements to your Markdown documents. At the same time, you don't have to use HTML; you can just keep it simple and readable.

Markdown Syntax

This is a quick reference for Markdown syntax. A more complete guide can be found on GitHub.

Basic Formatting

• Bold: **Bold**
• Emphasized: *Emphasized*
• Strikethrough : ~~Strikethrough~~
• Horizontal rules: --- (three hyphens), *** (three asterisks), or ___ (three underscores).

Headings

All heading levels (e.g. H1, H2, etc), are marked by # at the beginning of a line. For example, an H1 is # Heading 1 and an H2 is ## Heading 2. This continues to ###### Heading 6.

Links

Links can be created using several methods:

• Links can be [inline](https://phpkb.com)
• Inline links can [have a title](https://phpkb.com "Knowledge Base Software")
• Also, there can be reference links that allow the URL to be placed later in the document:
  • Here is a [reference link][PHPKB] that links to this site.
  • References are case-insensitive (for example [this link][PHPKB] works).
  • References can also [use numbers][1].
  • Or leave it empty and use the [link text itself].
• Also, you can use relative links [like this](../folder/sub-folder/file.txt).
• URLs and URLs in angle brackets will automatically get turned into links: https://phpkb.com or <https://phpkb.com>.

URLs for reference links are somewhere later in the document like this:

[PHPKB]: https://phpkb.com
[1]: https://phpkb.com
[link text itself]: https://phpkb.com

Images

Images can also be inline or use a reference style, similar to links. Simply prepend an exclamation point to turn the link into an image. For example:

Images with the full URL: ![alt text](https://www.yoursite.com/images/some-photo.jpg)
Or, a reference-style image: ![alt text][photo].
[photo]: https://www.yoursite.com/images/some-photo.jpg

Lists (Ordered Lists and Unordered Lists)

Lists are made by using indentation and a beginning-of-line marker to indicate a list item. For example, unordered lists are made like this:

* One item
* Another item
	* A sub-item
		* A deeper item
	* Back in sub-item land
* And back at the main level

Unordered lists can use an asterisk (*), plus (+), or minus (-) to indicate each list item.

Ordered lists use a number at the beginning of the line. The numbers do not need to be incremented - this will happen for you automatically by the HTML. That makes it easier to re-order your ordered lists (in markdown) as needed.

Also, ordered and unordered lists can be nested within each other. For example:

* One item
* Another item
	1. A nested ordered list
	1. This is the second item
		* And now an unordered list as its child
		* Another item in this list
	1. One more in the ordered list
* And back at the main level

Code and Syntax Highlighting

Inline code uses `backticks` around it. Code blocks are either fenced by three backticks (```) or indented four spaces. For example:

```
var foo = 'bar';
function baz(s) {
	return foo + ':' + s;
}
```

Blockquotes

Use > to offset text as a blockquote. For example:

> This is some part of a blockquote.
> Some more stuff.

Will produce:

This is some part of a blockquote. Some more stuff can come here.

Markdown References

Listed below are some excellent references to markdown resources where you can learn more about the markdown syntax.

• Markdown for Dummies
• Getting Started | Markdown Guide