Markdown is a markup language that supports basic text formatting and is widely employed within many web applications. Markdown does not support scripting languages, making it a secure alternative to allowing your users to embed HTML snippets within your site.

Emphasis Text

Bold and Italic allow you to emphasize some text. Surround the text that you want to be bold with asterisks (*) and surround the text that you want to be italicized with underscores (_).

This text:

Markdown supports *bold* and _italic_ text.

Results in:

Markdown supports bold and italic text.

Headings

Headings allow you to organize a block of text into sections, including nested sub-sections. To make headers in Markdown, you preface the phrase with a hash mark (#). You place the same number of hash marks as the size of the header you want. For example, for a header one, you'd use one hash mark (# Header One), while for a header four, you'd use four (#### Header Four).

Lists

You can create numbered and bulleted lists with Markdown.

Numbered lists are created by starting a line with (1.). Each next entry in the list begins on its own line. This text:

1. Launch Marketing Site
1. ???
1. Profit

Results in the numbered list:

1. Launch Marketing Site
2. ???
3. Profit

To create a bulleted list, start each line with a hyphen (-). So the following text:

- Brady
- Ingalls
- Walton

results in this bulleted list:

• Brady
• Ingalls
• Walton

Links

You can create links to any URL. Markdown links will replace the currently open window. To create a link, surround the text that you wish to link with square brackets ([ ]) and follow it with the target URL enclosed in parenthesis. Do not put a space between the closing square bracket (]) and the opening paren (().

[Grand Canyon National Park](https://www.nps.gov/grca)

Results in

Grand Canyon National Park

Images

Markdown supports embedding images in your text.

Markdown cannot control the height and width of an embedded image, so it will always appear as its full size. Some hosted image providers support dynamically resizing images with URL parameters; consult your provider's documentation for the supported syntax. Hosted images from a Files.com Public Hosting folder do not support dynamic resizing.

To display an image, start with an exclamation point (!), then square brackets containing the alt text, followed by the URL of the image in parenthesis. Do not put a space between the closing square bracket (]) and the opening paren (().

![Laptop on desk](https://picsum.photos/id/8/200)

Images With Links

You can also wrap an image within a link. To add a link to an image, enclose the Markdown for the image in square brackets, and then add the link in parentheses.

[![Laptop on desk](https://picsum.photos/id/8/200)](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=laptop)

Settings That Support Markdown

Many settings within your Files.com site support Markdown formatting.

Clickwrap Body Text

You can use markdown in the body of clickwraps, so that you're able to link to external resources and use headings, bold and bullets to clearly present the clickwrap agreement to your visitors.

Settings for Share Links and Inboxes

The public descriptions of Share Links and Inboxes also support Markdown. Public description text is presented as a message from you to your web visitors, allowing you to add specific instructions. The Inbox help text is displayed to Inbox visitors immediately below the public description. Share Link custom "Not Found" messages are displayed when visitors attempt to access a Share Link that is not available. You can use Markdown with all of these settings to guide your visitors, such as providing links to external programs that might be needed to access files, listing the steps that should be performed to complete a process, or publishing contact information to obtain further support.

Site Display Settings

You can include information formatted in Markdown at the top (as a header) or the bottom (in a footer) of your site's web interface. This is helpful for links to intranet resources that your users may need, or can be used to share messages to all of your users.

You can provide additional help text on your site's login page in Markdown format. This is displayed directly within the login form.

Settings for Users

You can use Markdown formatting within a user's header text, which is displayed only for that user.

The internal notes setting for a user, which also supports Markdown, is displayed only for site administrators.