2.1 How do I use markdown?

Markdown is super simple to learn, but there's a few tricks that we use on this site (we use a version of this called Kramdown, once you have the basics, go to the guide for this.

Below are full instructions on how to use Markdown elements.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are really simple to achieve. Two returns or two line breaks creates a new paragraph. So this example shows how to create a paragraph:

 The Fitzwilliam Coffin collection is out of this world.

 You can find it in the Gayer-Anderson section of the museum on the ground floor.

Text styling

Text styling, again is pretty simple to achieve. Stylistically for this site, we will only use BOLD and ITALIC text styles. To achieve this, look at the code below:

**This is bold text** 

_This is italic text_

Which will produce:

This is bold text

This is italic text

URLs, hyperlinks or whatever you call them

Adding hyperlinks, I find it hard to remember, but once you do it regularly, you'll get the idea! To add a hyperlink to text you wrap the text inside square brackets and the link directly after in parentheses like below:

[Egyptian Coffins](https://egyptiancoffins.org)

Will produce:

Egyptian Coffins

Images

Adding images is similar to hyperlinks and uses the same format as above. However, you precede the syntax with an exclamation mark and your alternative text describing the image goes inside of the square brackets. So follow this example:

![alt text](https://egyptiancoffins.org/images/nespawershefyt/Nes1.jpg)

Which will produce:

Lists

Bullet pointed lists are beloved by academics! So to make text into a bulleted list, you have two options (sorry for the choice!). You do this by using a dash - or an asterisk *, followed by a space, before each line.

 - Rameses
 - Rameses II
 - Nefertiti

This will produce:

• Rameses
• Rameses II
• Nefertiti

Ordered or numbered Lists

Again, numbered lists are a staple of academia. To make a numbered list start each line of text with the number, period and then space, for example:

1. Ramses
2. Rameses II
3. Nefertiti
4. Melanie Pitkin

This results in the following:

1. Ramses
2. Rameses II
3. Nefertiti
4. Melanie Pitkin

Block Quotes

Sometimes you will want to create block quotes. This is done by prefixing lines with angle brackets >. So try this code:

> The Egyptian Coffins site is amazing

This results in:

The Egyptian Coffins site is amazing

Tables

Now we get a bit more creative! You create a table by making a list of words and separating each column with a pipe |. You will then delineate the header/first row from the rest by adding a line of hyphens as shown below:

Coffin piece  | Coffin colour
------------- | -------------
Footboard     | Black
Mortise       | Red

This will produce:

Coffin piece	Coffin colour
Footboard	Black
Mortise	Red

If you want to make it easier to read on screen, you can wrap each line in a pipe too such as:

|Coffin piece  | Coffin colour|
|------------- | -------------|
|Footboard     | Black        |
|Mortise       | Red          |

Which will still give the same result:

Coffin piece	Coffin colour
Footboard	Black
Mortise	Red