Formatting¶

Enabling Markdown in AtoM¶

For AtoM to parse your content and render Markdown syntax, you will first need to ensure that the Markdown setting is enabled in AtoM - it can be found in Admin > Settings > Markdown. For more information, see:

• Markdown settings

Once enabled, AtoM will render any user-added content with Markdown syntax as formatted content in view pages. Note that any incomplete elements (e.g. an attempt to bold content by putting it inside double asterisk characters, but forgetting to add the closing asterisks like so: **my content) will be ignored and will remain rendered as plain text.

Headers¶

Headers can be used to add section titles when organizing long text-based content. Once parsed by the Markdown library in AtoM, these are rendered for display as <h1> to <h6> HTML headings.

You can add headers to AtoM by adding pound signs before text on its own line, like so:

# Header1
## Header2
### Header3
#### Header4
##### Header5
###### Header6

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

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Emphasis and text styling¶

You can add bold, italics, strikethrough, and a combination of these elements to text, like so:

Emphasis, aka italics, with *asterisks* or _underscores_.

Strong emphasis, aka bold, with **asterisks** or __ double underscores__.

Combined bold and italics emphasis with **asterisks and _underscores_**.

Strikethrough uses two tildes. ~~Scratch this.~~

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

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Lists¶

Lists in AtoM using Markdown can be ordered (e.g. sequential numbering) or unordered (e.g. bullets). These generally need to be found at the start of a new line, with space above and below them for them to render properly.

The basic syntax for an unordered list is an asterisk followed by a space, and then the list item. Ordered lists require a number and a period, followed by a space before the list item:

Here's an unordered list of numbers:

* one
* two
* three
* four

Here's an ordered list:

1. one
2. two
3. three
4. four

You can insert properly indented paragraphs in the middle of a list while maintaining the list formatting, you can mix ordered and unordered list elements, and you can nest list elements as needed. To indent a list and add a nested list element, add 2 spaces before your next list character, like so:

Here's a nested unordered list of numbers:

* one
  * two
    * three
      * four

        this is still part of four

Here's a partially nested ordered list of numbers:

1. one
  2. two
3. three
  4. four

     this is still part of four

Here is how the above nested lists would display in AtoM:

Note that spacing is very important to get right with nested lists. Note as well how the numbering resets in ordered list screenshot example - the actual number you add does not matter. Markdown will maintain the numbering order of the primary list based on the level of indentation and will continute the number after nesting.

Below are some more detailed examples with a mix of list elements:

1. First ordered list item
2. Another item
⋅⋅* Unordered sub-list.
1. Actual numbers don't matter, just that it's a number
⋅⋅1. Ordered sub-list
4. And another item.

⋅⋅⋅You can have properly indented paragraphs within list items. Notice the blank line above, and the leading spaces (at least one, but we'll use three here to also align the raw Markdown).

⋅⋅⋅To have a line break without a paragraph, you will need to use two trailing spaces.⋅⋅
⋅⋅⋅Note that this line is separate, but within the same paragraph.⋅⋅
⋅⋅⋅(This is different from the typical GitHub-flavored Markdown line break behavior, where trailing spaces are not required.)

* Unordered list can use asterisks
- Or minuses
+ Or pluses

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

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Hyperlinks¶

In many cases, users may wish to add a hyperlink to an external site to the edit page of an archival description or other entity in AtoM - for example, a link to an external finding aid in the “Finding aids” field; a link to an external holdings list on a repository page, etc.

There are 2 main methods this can be accomplished - either in-line, or by adding a reference link. Inline links look like this:

[display text in square brackets](http://www.my-hyperlink-example.com)

The above example will lead to “display text in square brackets” appearing as a hyperlink in the view page of the entity when saved.

You can also separate the display text from the link, using the reference method, like so:

This is my [hyperlink]. I can add more content after it.

[hyperlink]: http://www.my-hyperlink-example.com

In the above example, the word “hyperlink” in the first sentence would appear as an external link. The reference text below, which tells AtoM the URL of the hyperlink, would not be displayed in the view page upon save.

Below is a summary of some of the different linking options and formats available:

[I'm an inline-style link](https://www.accesstomemory.org)

[I'm an inline-style link with title](https://www.acccesstomemory.org "AtoM's Homepage")

[I'm a reference-style link][Arbitrary case-insensitive reference text]

[You can use numbers for reference-style link definitions][1]

Or leave it empty and use the [link text itself].

URLs and URLs in angle brackets will automatically get turned into links.
http://www.example.com or <http://www.example.com>.

Some text to show that the reference links can follow later.

[arbitrary case-insensitive reference text]: https://www.artefactual.com
[1]: https://www.slideshare.net/accesstomemory
[link text itself]: https://twitter.com/accesstomemory

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

Go to the [global settings page](/settings/global) with this link.

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Images¶

You can also use Markdown to include images available on the web inside user-editable AtoM fields. Much like when you link external web-based digital objects to an archival description, the following conditions must be met for the display of the image to succeed:

• They must be available on the public web - any login requirements, firewalls, VPN restrictions, etc. will cause the link to fail.
• You must provide a link directly to the digital object - that is, the link must end in the file extension (e.g. .jpg, .png, etc). This is often acheived by right-clicking on an image in a webpage and selecting “view image”, and then using the URL provided on the resulting page.
• Your image URLs must be HTTP or HTTPS based - FTP links or internal network shares not available on the public web will not work.

Additionally, some formats (such as .svg) will not render. We recommend JPEG and PNG formats for the best results.

The syntax is similar to that for creating hyperlinks, but is preceded by an exclamation mark. You can use the in-line style, or you can separate the target hyperlink to the image from the place where it is called, using the reference-style image link.

The basic format for inline image linking is like so:

![alt text](http://www.my-example-image.com/cat.png "title text")

Some examples of both formats:

Here's Artefactual's logo (hover to see the title text):

Inline-style:
![alt text](https://static.accesstomemory.org/images/artefactual.png "Logo Title Text 1")

Reference-style:
![alt text][logo]

[logo]: https://static.accesstomemory.org/images/artefactual.png "Logo Title Text 2"

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

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Escaped content (code blocks and raw text)¶

Because Markdown is often used to help document programming code (where spacing and proper indentation etc. can matter), it also includes a method to display individual strings, or whole blocks of text, in a raw or escaped format.

To escape text inline in a paragraph you can add back-ticks around it like so:

Inline `code` has `back-ticks around` it

This will display in AtoM as:

You can also escape a whole block of text, by “fencing” it with three back-ticks on the lines above and below the content you want to escape. The escaped text is typically referred to as a code block in Markdown. An example:

Blocks of code are  "fenced" by  new lines with three back-ticks, like so:

```
This whole block will be escaped. So let's throw in a <b>tag</b>. and some
**markdown** emphasis to show how it doesn't render
```

You can then add more content after.

This will display in AtoM as:

Note that within an escaped code block, all content is skipped by the parser - meaning both Markdown and HTML inside the block will not render.

Block quotes¶

Block quotes can be a useful way of quoting content from other sources. On a new line, they can be created by adding a > character and a space before the content. For multiple paragraphs within a block quote, simply keep adding the > character on each new line, including any spaces.

Note that other markdown added in a block quote will still render properly.

An example:

> Block quotes are very handy in email to emulate reply text.
>
> This line is part of the same quote.

Quote break. Your regular text can continue here

> This is a very long line that will still be quoted properly when it wraps. Oh boy let's keep writing to make sure this is long enough to actually wrap for everyone. Oh, you`can` *put* **Markdown** into a block quote.

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

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Horizontal rules¶

A horizontal rule is simply a horizontal line, that can be used to separate sections of content. You can add these by simply adding 3 or more special characters (hyphens, asterisks, or underscores) on their own line. For example:

Three or more...

---

Hyphens

***

Asterisks

___

Underscores

...will all create a horizontal rule.

An image of how these will render in AtoM:

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