Markdown Flavor

Markdown comes in more than one flavor.

WriteRoom reads CommonMark, the flavor many apps follow today, plus extensions like fenced code, tables, footnotes, and math. Unless you've used Markdown for a long time, you probably don't need to worry about any of this.

Older documents may follow Markdown.pl, John Gruber's original Markdown. Choose it, and WriteRoom reads them the way you meant: it follows Markdown.pl where the two disagree and keeps the extensions.

To choose a flavor

• Choose WriteRoom > Settings… (Command-,), click Markdown, and choose a Flavor.

Where the Flavors Differ

You write	Markdown.pl reads	CommonMark reads
#Heading	A heading	Text
A wrapped line starting -	Part of the paragraph	A new list
> lines with a blank line between	One quote	Two quotes
[text] [id]	One reference link	Only [id] as a link
[text](my file.md)	A link	Text
\ at the end of a line	Text	A line break

There are a few rarer differences too. Bare addresses like www.example.com become links only in CommonMark.

WriteRoom reads Markdown with its own incremental parser. It's new, so some edge cases are likely still off. If a document reads wrong, please let me know in the WriteRoom Support Forum, with a sample that shows the problem.

See also

• Markdown Formatting
• Settings Window
• Markdown Beyond WriteRoom