Markdown Guide for CourtListener
Markdown is a lightweight and simple system that can be used to write complex and beautiful documents on the Web. At CourtListener, you can use Markdown to add links, headers, and other formatting.
Markdown is based loosely on email formatting and is easy to learn. For example, to make a word bold, all you have to do is add asterisks around it, **like this**, and then when CourtListener displays the words, they'll be bold. Many of the rules of Markdown are similar, so most people are able to learn the basics in a few minutes.
This guide is for CourtListener. There is a separate guide for this wiki.
Basic Formatting
Paragraphs
The easiest thing to do in Markdown is to create paragraphs. To create paragraphs, simply press enter twice, like you normally do. For example, these are paragraphs from the recent Supreme Court opinion, Obergefell v. Hodges:
It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of
marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they
seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.
Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality (whatever that means) were
freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged
rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.
When rendered, these paragraphs do what you might expect, becoming:
It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.
Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality (whatever that means) were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.
If you want a manual line break, without a space between two paragraphs, add two or more spaces to the end of a line:
I know it when I see it␣␣
the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
Which then renders as:
I know it when I see it
the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
Emphasis
Like you sometimes see in email, it's easy to make bold, italics and the combination of the two:
*italics*
**bold**
***bold italics***
Becomes:
italics
bold
bold italics
Headers
The easiest way to make headers is to put a pound sign in front of some words. For example:
# Biggest Header
## Smaller Header
### Smaller Still
#### Smallest Header
Becomes:
Biggest Header
Smaller Header
Smaller Still
Smallest Header
Lists
You can make basic lists as well using dashes or asterisks at the beginning of the line:
Here's a list of fruit:
- apples
- bananas
- berries
- strawberries
Becomes:
Here's a list of fruit:
- apples
- bananas
- berries
- strawberries
Note how the indentation in the Markdown creates an indented item.
You can also make ordered lists using numbers at the beginning of the line. For example:
1. This list is
2. Numbered
Becomes:
- This list is
- Numbered
You don't have to use sequential numbers, and lots of people just use the number one over and over so that they can change the order of the list easily. For example, this is the same as above:
1. This list is
1. Numbered
You can also mix and match numbered and ordered lists, even nesting, one inside the other, like so:
- Something
- Something else
- These are other things:
1. Thingamajig
1. Wingding
Which becomes:
- Something
- Something else
- These are other things:
- Thingamajig
- Wingding
If you put an extra return between two bullets or two numbered lines, you can create numbered paragraphs, with slightly more space between. And if you want one item in your list to have multiple paragraphs, you can do that too using an additional four spaces before the second paragraph. Here's an example showing both these features:
1. This is an example of space between list items.
1. Look at all that space.
And here's an extra paragraph as part of bullet 2!
1. And then a third item.
Becomes:
This is an example of space between list items.
Look at all that space.
And here's an extra paragraph as part of bullet 2!
And then a third item.
Links
There are three ways to make links. The first is very easy. Just put a link in < and >, and it will become clickable:
<https://free.law>
The second way to make a link allows certain text to be in the link. So:
The [Free Law Project](https://free.law) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Becomes:
The Free Law Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
The third way is again borrowed from email and uses footnotes:
We rely on your [donations][1] to survive.
Some of our projects are [CourtListener][cl] and [RECAP][r].
[1]: https://donate.free.law/forms/supportflp
[cl]: https://www.courtlistener.com/
[r]: https://free.law/recap/
Becomes:
We rely on your donations to survive.
Some of our projects are CourtListener and RECAP.
Note that you're free to use numbers or any other specific text when creating these footnote-style links. It's often easier to give them meaningful names instead of numbers so that you can remember them later if you want to use the same footnote a second or third time. (Above, I used 1, cl, and r but I could have used anything.)
Quotes
If you wish to quote somebody, you can do that too, again borrowing a style common in email:
> This is a quote!
Becomes:
This is a quote!
If you want to nest quotes, just repeat the format:
The [Oyez Project][oyez] reported big news today on their blog:
> Thomas asked a question during oral argument! He said:
> > I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
[oyez]: https://www.oyez.org
The Oyez Project reported big news today on their blog:
Thomas asked a question during oral argument! He said:
I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
This example also shows an extra paragraph and a footnote-style link, to build up a more complex example.
Special Topics
Footnotes
You can create footnotes as follows:
This is a paragraph with a footnote. [^note-id]
[^note-id]: This is the text of the note.
Which creates:
This is a paragraph with a footnote.1
1. This is the text of the note. ↩
Tables
You can make tables using pipes (|) and dashes (-). For example:
Fruits|Vegetables
------|----------
apple|spinach
orange|celery
Which becomes:
Fruits Vegetables apple spinach orange celery
mike