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Development Tools Markdown Basics Lists, Code, Links and Images Links and Images

Nils Sens
Nils Sens
9,654 Points
Posted by Nils Sens
Nils Sens
9,654 Points

so, how to actually **use** .md files in a web project?

I haven't seen the part where it's added to a project. Do we need to compile these .md files somehow?

3 Answers

Wade Christensen
STAFF
Wade Christensen
Treehouse Teacher
Wade Christensen
Wade Christensen
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Nils,

I tried to cover this a little bit in the last video of the course. I hope that video clarified things, but here's a quick summary. Any site or program that allows you to input Markdown such as GitHub, this forum, Atom, or any blog engine must have a Markdown parser installed. That parser does the work of translating your Markdown into HTML. This means you can't write Markdown anywhere. Markdown must be supported by the site or program. For example, when you upload a Markdown formatted README to GitHub, GitHub has a GitHub Flavored Markdown parser that handles the document appropriately. Without the parser, the text will just show with all the "#", "*", and other characters displayed as plain text.

I hope that's helpful, but let me know if I can clarify more.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,248 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,248 Points

I'm not aware of any Markdown compilers.

It's generally interpreted by the viewing program or parsed in the server that will deliver the content. Like right here, in the Treehouse forum. You enter Markdown in your posts and it is interpreted as it is displayed.

Nils Sens
Nils Sens
9,654 Points
Nils Sens
Nils Sens
9,654 Points

Wouldn't it be cool to create a command line tool like JADE for MarkDwn? I picture this could help build faster HTML... But what would be most awesome for me is a Google Drive plugin that turns a document right into HTML / CSS. Unfortunately I'm not at that level yet.