Formatting Annotations with Markdown in Hypothesis
The Hypothesis editor supports formatting your annotations using Markdown — this help article serves as a “cheat sheet” for using Markdown syntax in the annotation editor.
Also see articles on embedding links, images, and videos, and formatting annotations using LaTeX.
Want to print this sheet out? Here’s a printable PDF.
Style
Syntax
Example
Result
Headings
# H1
## H2
### H3
1# Largest heading 2 3## Smaller heading 4 5### Even smaller
Largest heading
Smaller heading
Even smaller
Bold
**text** or __text__
This text is bold
Italic
*text* or _text_
1*This text is italicized*
This text is italicized
Strikethrough
~~text~~
1~~This text has been struck through~~
This text has been struck through
Blockquote
> quoted text
1Here’s a quote: 2> quoted text
Here’s a quote:
quoted text
Ordered list
First item
Second item
Third item
1Favorite colors: 21. Blue 32. Purple 43. Green
Favorite colors:
Blue
Purple
Green
Unordered list
– First item
– Second item
– Third item
1Grocery list: 2- Coffee 3- Tea 4- Milk
Grocery list:
Inline code
`code`
1Run `make dev` to start the server
Run make dev to start the server
Horizontal rule
1Starting a new section 2 3--- 4
(notice the empty line between the text and horizontal rule)
Starting a new section
Previewing your annotation
You can click “Preview” in the annotation editor toolbar to see what your formatted annotation will look like:
…and you can click “Write” to continue editing your annotation:
Troubleshooting annotation formatting
If you are copying annotation text from another source (Microsoft Word, Google Docs, etc), paste the text without formatting. You can do this with Option+Shift+Command+V for Macs or Ctrl+Shift+V for PCs.
Ensure there is an empty line between paragraph text and horizontal rules.
Experiment with hitting Enter or Return once vs. twice if you encounter line break issues.
Consult the GitHub Flavored Markdown spec or create a ticket to get help from Hypothesis.