Have you ever struggled to make your text look professional, clear and organized? Do you often find yourself spending hours trying to format your documents and notes?
Well, the good news is that markup languages can make your life much easier! In this article, I'll introduce you to two popular markup languages that are designed to make text formatting a breeze which are ReStructuredText (RST) and Markdown.
Whether you're writing technical documents or just taking down some notes, these markup languages will help you create clean, organized and easy-to-read text. They use symbols, characters and indentations to format text and turn plain text into a well-structured document. So, if you're ready to take your text formatting game to the next level, let's dive in!
Markdown
Markdown is a lightweight markup language that provides a simple and easy-to-use syntax for creating various text elements such as headings, lists, links, images, emphasis, blockquotes and paragraphs.I'll be teaching you about these different Markdown elements alongside code snippets!
Headings
Markdown uses hash symbols (#) to create headings of different levels. For example, a single hash symbol (#) creates a first-level heading, while two hash symbols (##) create a second-level heading and so on. It's that simple!
# First-level heading
## Second-level heading
### Third-level heading
Bold and Italics
Bold and italic text are great ways to add emphasis to your text. In Markdown, you can use the underscore symbol (_) for italic text and double asterisks (**) for bold text.
For example, if you want to create italic text, you can surround the text with a single underscore on each side:
This text is _italic_.
To create a bold text, you can surround the text with double asterisks on each side:
This text is **bold**.
You can also combine the two to create a bold and italic text:
This text is **_bold and italic_**.
Italic and bold text can be used in various ways to emphasize important words or phrases in your text, making it easier for your readers to quickly scan and understand the content. For instance, you can use italic text to highlight headings or bold text to emphasize key quotes or points.
Lists
Lists are an important part of Markdown and are used to present information in a structured manner. You can create either ordered or unordered lists. To create an unordered list, simply use asterisks (*):
* Item 1
* Item 2
* Item 3
For an ordered list, use numbers followed by a period e.g (1.):
1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item 3
Links
Links in Markdown can be of two types - inline links and reference links.
Inline Links
Inline links are created by using square brackets ([ ]) to denote the link text and parentheses (()) to hold the URL:
[Google](https://www.google.com)
Reference Links
Reference links on the other hand, allow you to define your links at the end of your document and reuse them multiple times. To create a reference link, use square brackets ([]) to denote the link text and an identifier that you can use to refer to the link later on:
[Google][google]
...
[google]: https://www.google.com
Images
Adding images to your documents is just as easy as adding links. You can use either inline images or reference images.
Inline Images
Inline images are created by using an exclamation mark (!) followed by square brackets ([ ]) which hold the alt text and parentheses (()) which hold the URL of the image:
Reference Images
Reference images on the other hand, also allow you to define your images at the end of your document and reuse them multiple times. To create a reference image, use an exclamation mark (!) followed by square brackets to denote the alt text and an identifier that you can use to refer to the image later on:
![Alt Text][image_identifier]
...
[image_identifier]: image URL
Blockquotes
If you want to highlight a quote or a section of the text you can use blockquotes. Blockquotes are created by using the greater than symbol (>):
> This is a blockquote.
Markdown is a powerful tool for writing and formatting text especially for technical documents. Another popular markup language that has gained widespread use is ReStructuredText (RST).
ReStructuredText(RST)
ReStructuredText, also known as RST, is a markup language that's perfect for writing technical documents. It was created as a part of the Docutils project and is designed to make reading and writing easy. Here's a quick example of how RST can be used to format a heading:
= Heading 1
This is some text under Heading 1.
With RST, you can format your text using symbols and indentations making it easy to create headings, bullet points, tables and more. The syntax is designed to be easy to read even in its raw form, making it ideal for working with large and complex documents.
Both ReStructuredText and Markdown are powerful and useful markup languages that have their unique strengths. If you're looking to write technical documents, ReStructuredText might be the better choice with its support for a wide range of output formats and its ability to handle large and complex documents. On the other hand, if you're looking for a simple and fast way to format text, Markdown is a great option with its clean and readable syntax. Choose the markup language that fits your needs and start formatting text like a pro!
Happy Markup-ing!