Markdown to Wikitext

Basic commands for editing

Almost exactly 20 years ago, John McFarland, a professor at Berkley, spent his vac writing pandoc, a command line processor that converts anything into anything else.

Pandoc inside means the same file can be output as a web page, a pdf or other publishing formats like epub

Pandoc inside means the same file can be output as a web page, a pdf or other publishing formats like epub

Almost exactly 20 years ago, John McFarland, a professor at Berkley, spent his vac writing pandoc, a command line processor that converts anything into anything else. That does mean anything and it converts everything, text, formulae, equations, footnotes,special characters, everything. Much more recently someone decided that if it was inside a content generation system rather than outside, life on publishing projects would become much easier for everyone and Quarto was born. Born for the purpose as far as Shakespeare sites go.

You can see the result on some of the pages here with Print or PDF buttons. Push those and instead of going through the HTML processor and off to web pages, the content goes through LaTeX and becomes a printe document with the fonts and margins where the author intended.So if you want to write for the site, you need to know what Markup is. If you remember pre-Windows Word Perfect, you’ll be right at home. Wikitext, the language of Wikipedia is similar. All text, no clever stuff.

However, pandoc inside means that whatever you use to edit can be loaded more or less without change onto the site.

It’s the same (ish). Quarto, the web engine, does everything once the text is in Markdown. All done with interpreted keyboard characters. Answers to every question on Substack.com. Ask specifics in the comments below.

Basic Formatting

Feature Markdown Wikitext
Bold **Text** '''Text''' (3 apostrophes)
Italic *Text* ''Text'' (2 apostrophes)
Bold Italic ***Text*** '''''Text''''' (5 apostrophes)
Internal Link [Title](URL) [[Page Title]] or [[Target]]
External Link [Text](URL) https://example.com (single brackets, space between)

Headings & Structure

Level Markdown Wikitext
Level 1 # Title = Title = (rarely used in articles)
Level 2 ## Section == Section == (standard main section)
Level 3 ### Subsection === Subsection ===
Level 4 #### Small ==== Small ====

Lists & Indentation

Feature Markdown Wikitext
Bullet List * Item * Item
Numbered List 1. Item # Item
Indentation Tab or space : (colons indent talk page replies)

Tables

Wikitext tables are notoriously verbose compared to Markdown’s pipe tables.

Markdown:

| Year | Author |
|------|--------|
| 1623 | Digges |

Wikitext:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Author
|-
| 1623 || Digges
|}

Simple MArkdown Cheat Sheet.


This Markdown cheat sheet provides a quick overview of all the Markdown syntax elements. It can’t cover every edge case, so if you need more information about any of these elements, refer to the reference guides for [basic syntax](https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax/) and [extended syntax](https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/).

## Basic Syntax

These are the elements outlined in John Gruber’s original design document. All Markdown applications support these elements.


**bold text**

### Italic

*italicized text*

### Blockquote

> blockquote

### Ordered List

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item

### Unordered List

- First item
- Second item
- Third item

### Code

`code`

### Horizontal Rule

---

### Link

[Markdown Guide](https://www.markdownguide.org)

### Image

![caption](https://www.markdownguide.org/assets/images/tux.png)

## Extended Syntax

These elements extend the basic syntax by adding additional features. Not all Markdown applications support these elements.

### Table

| Syntax | Description |
| ----------- | ----------- |
| Header | Title |
| Paragraph | Text |

### Fenced Code Block

{ “firstName”: “John”, “lastName”: “Smith”, “age”: 25 }


### Footnote

Here's a sentence with a footnote. [^1]

[^1]: This is the footnote.

### Heading ID

### My Great Heading {#custom-id}

### Definition List

term
: definition

### Strikethrough

~~The world is flat.~~

### Task List

- [x] Write the press release
- [ ] Update the website
- [ ] Contact the media

### Emoji

That is so funny! :joy: (don't even think about it, -ED.)

(See also [Copying and Pasting Emoji](https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/#copying-and-pasting-emoji))

### Highlight

I need to highlight these ==very important words==.

### Subscript

H~2~O

### Superscript

X^2^