Lists
two kinds of list in Markdown
Markdown supports ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists.
1. Unordered lists
use asterisks, pluses, and hyphens — interchangably — as list markers:
* Red
* Green
* Blue
is equivalent to:
+ Red
+ Green
+ Blue
and:
- Red
- Green
- Blue
2. Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods:
1. Bird
2. McHale
3. Parish
It’s
importantto note that the actual numbers you use to mark the list have no effect on the HTML output Markdown produces. The HTML Markdown produces from the above list is:
- Bird
- McHale
- Parish
If you instead wrote the list in Markdown like this:
1. Bird
1. McHale
1. Parish
or even:
3. Bird
1. McHale
8. Parish
for all of the three list, you get:
- Bird
- McHale
- Parish
you’d get the exact same HTML output for the HTML is
- Bird
- McHale
- Parish
The point is, if you want to, you can use ordinal numbers in your ordered Markdown lists, so that the numbers in your source match the numbers in your published HTML. But if you want to be lazy, you don’t have to.
If you do use lazy list numbering, however, you should still start the list with the number 1. At some point in the future, Markdown may support starting ordered lists at an arbitrary number.Mark‘s Notes：It has already been supported now.
3. Attention
List markers typically start at the left margin, but may be indented by up to three spaces. List markers must be followed by one or more spaces or a tab.
3.1 To make lists look nice
1. you can wrap items with hanging indents:
by manually setting line feed and indents
* Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus. Vestibulum enim wisi,
viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus.
* Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit.
Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus. Vestibulum enim wisi,
viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus. - Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit.
Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
2. But if you want to be lazy, you don’t have to:
* Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus. Vestibulum enim wisi,
viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus.
* Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit.
Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aliquam hendrerit mi posuere lectus. Vestibulum enim wisi,
viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet vitae, risus. - Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum sit amet velit.
Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
3.2 List item stretching out several lines
3.2.1 list items separated by blank lines
Markdown will wrap the items in < p> tags in the HTML output. For example, this input:
* Bird
* Magic
will turn into:
- Bird
- Magic
and
* Bird
* Magic
will turn into:
Bird
Magic
3.2.2 List items consist of multiple paragraphs
Each subsequent paragraph in a list item must be indented by either 4 spaces or one tab:
1. This is a list item with two paragraphs. Lorem ipsum dolor
sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam hendrerit
mi posuere lectus.
[4 spaces or one tab here]Vestibulum enim wisi, viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet
vitae, risus. Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum
sit amet velit.
2. Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
-
This is a list item with two paragraphs. Lorem ipsum dolor
sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam hendrerit
mi posuere lectus.Vestibulum enim wisi, viverra nec, fringilla in, laoreet
vitae, risus. Donec sit amet nisl. Aliquam semper ipsum
sit amet velit. Suspendisse id sem consectetuer libero luctus adipiscing.
It looks nice if you indent every line of the subsequent paragraphs, but here again, Markdown will allow you to be lazy:
* This is a list item with two paragraphs.
This is the second paragraph in the list item. You're
only required to indent the first line. Lorem ipsum dolor
sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
* Another item in the same list.
-
This is a list item with two paragraphs.
This is the second paragraph in the list item. You're
only required to indent the first line. Lorem ipsum dolor
sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Another item in the same list.
3.2.3 block within a list item
- To put a blockquote within a list item, the blockquote’s > delimiters need to be indented:
- To put a code block within a list item, the code block needs to be indented twice — 8 spaces or two tabs:
Go to the author's website to check the examples
3.2.4 avoid triggering an ordered list by accident
by writing something like this: 1986. What a great season. In other words, a number-period-space sequence at the beginning of a line, it will produce an ordered list. To avoid this, you can backslash-escape the period: 1986\. What a great season.