Markdown is a popular language for easy production of electronic documents. For course development, I find that it serves well as a way to prepare high-quality documents quickly that can be easily maintained and modified.

• I don’t like typing in HTML directly.
• Editing in Word and saving as HTML results in grungy HTML that is hard to modify and unstable if any post-processing (e.g., XSL) is desired.
• Markdown can easily be used to produce many different output formats.
• Markdown processing is fast (which is why it is replacing LaTeX as my input format of choice for casual documents).
• Word, PowerPoint, and other binary file formats do not lend themselves well either to any post-processing nor to tracking using conventional version control system.

There are actually many different dialects of Markdown. CoWeM uses PegDown, because it is available as portable library that can be run on virtually any system. For reference purposes, PegDown is probably closest to MultiMarkdown, which has a convenient syntax cheat sheet.

But the essence of Markdown is that it appears as "natural" ASCII text
in its source format, with relatively obvious markings.

For example, paragraphs are separated simply by leaving a blank line
between them.

* And bulleted lists are indicated by paragraphs beginning
  with * or  -.
    * We can have sublists
* And so on.

    Four spaces of indentation creates a
	paragraph within a list item.

* And then we con continue with the list.


Numbered lists are similarly natural.

1. One thing ...
2. ...follows another.
1. But if you don't actually like keeping count, or if
   you later rearrange your list items, the actual
   output will be numbered appropriately.

Text can be marked with asterisks to indicate *emphasis* or **strong
emphasis**. You can also use underscores to indicate _emphasis_ or
__strong emphasis__.  Use a pair of tildes to ~~strike out~~ text.

Quotations are typed using the normal 
keyboard 'apostrophes'
or "quotation marks".  The Markdown
engine will typeset these using the
distinct left- and right-leaning
versions but you don't want to
type them `this way'. It
``does not work''. 

Use backwards apostrophes to mark text as `pre-formatted code`.  

You can set entire paragraphs as code by placing them between two
lines containing three
back-apostrophes.

```

for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i)
   cout << i << ": " << a[i] << endl; 

```

You can achieve the same result by simply indenting the lines by 4 or
more spaces.

    for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i)
       cout << i << ": " << a[i] << endl; 


(Notice the general pattern of treating 4 spaces of
 indentation as significant. Anything less is considered accidental and
  ignored.)

for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i)
   cout << i << ": " << a[i] << endl; 

for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i)
   cout << i << ": " << a[i] << endl; 

> Create block quotes by indenting text with a > character
> at the start of the line.

You can have [links](http://www.cs.odu.edu/~zeil).

You can add graphics:
![lab icon](lab.png "lab")

The Markdown processor allows inline HTML to be
entered directly when you want something that is
awkward or impossible to do in Markdown. So you can
also insert graphics by simply typing an `img`
element <img src="lab.png"/>, which may allow you
easier access to styling options.  

You can have links.

You can add graphics:

The Markdown processor allows inline HTML to be entered directly when you want something that is awkward or impossible to do in Markdown. So you can also insert graphics by simply typing an img element , which may allow you easier access to styling options.

# Section Headings

There are  a couple of ways to introduce section headings. I tend to
use the technique of placing #, ##, ###, etc., at the start of
a paragraph. For example:


## A Subsection Heading

With the aid of [MathJax](http://www.mathjax.org/), you can enter
mathmatics in LaTeX notation, both for displayed

\\[ \sum_{i=0}^{n} i = \frac{n(n-1)}{2} \\]

and for inline \\( \sum_{i=0}^{n} i = \frac{n(n-1)}{2} \\)
mathematics. $a^b_c$ also works. To put a "real" dollar
sign into your text,
put a backslash in front: my \$.02 worth. 

With the aid of MathJax, you can enter mathmatics in LaTeX notation, both for displayed

\[ \sum_{i=0}^{n} i = \frac{n(n-1)}{2} \]

and for inline \( \sum_{i=0}^{n} i = \frac{n(n-1)}{2} \) mathematics. $a^b_c$ also works. To put a “real” dollar sign into your text, put a backslash in front: my \$.02 worth.

The rendering of LaTeX mathematics can be turned off as a document set option. It is also possible to switch to AsciiMath instead of LaTeX.

Take note of the double-backslashes used to surround the mathematics regions. The normal convention in LaTeX would be to use \(…\) and \[…\]. But the Markdown processor treats backslashes oddly:

• If followed by a space or letter, a backslash is just a backslash.
• If followed by a punctuation character, a backslash must be doubled.

This affects not only the \(…\) and \[…\], but also selected uses of \ within LaTeX, most notable the use of set brackets { } and the \\ used to signal a line break in tables, arrays, or multi-line equations.

\\[ \begin{align}
s & = \\{ i | i \in \cal{N} \; \wedge \; i \bmod 2 = 0 \\} \\\\
  & = \\{ 2i | i \in \cal{N} \\}
\end{align} \\]

\[ \begin{align} s & = \{ i | i \in \cal{N} \; \wedge \; i \bmod 2 = 0 \} \\ & = \{ 2i | i \in \cal{N} \} \end{align} \]

Using [HighlightJS](http://highlightjs.org/),
syntax highlighting is automatically
be added to code:

```c++

class Book {
 public:
  std::string title;
  int numAuthors;
  std::string isbn;
  Publisher publisher;

  static const int maxAuthors = 12;
  Author* authors;  // array of Authors
};

```

Using HighlightJS, syntax highlighting is automatically be added to code:

class Book {
 public:
  std::string title;
  int numAuthors;
  std::string isbn;
  Publisher publisher;

  static const int maxAuthors = 12;
  Author* authors;  // array of Authors
};

The Markdown convention is to put the programming language name after the opening three back-apostrophes. As it happens, HighlightJS auto-detects the programming language being used, so you can put anything there that you like.

6 Metadata

A Markdown document can begin with one or more lines of metadata which provide data about the document. Typically these affect the document headers and appearance.

Each metadata field or item appears as a single line of text, beginning with a field name, then a colon, then the value of the field.

An empty line separates the metadata from the start of the Markdown text proper. For example, the Markdown source of this document begins with

Title: Course Documents from MarkDown
Author: Steven J Zeil
Date: Dec 31, 2025
TOC: yes

_Markdown_ is a popular language for easy production of electronic
⋮

The metadata fields supported in CoWeM are

Title

Provides a title for the document. This appears in the header and as the <title> of any generated HTML.

Author

Name of the author. This appears in the header.

Date

Appears in the header as “Last modified: …”. The special value @docModDate@ is replaced by the

• The last change checked into the repository if the course document is part of a git repository, or
• the last modification date of the Markdown source file, if that file is not within a git repository.

TOC

“yes” or “true” indicates that a table of contents should be generated at the start of the document.

CSS

Followed by a URL, links to a CSS file to adjust the document’s appearance. This field may be specified multiple times to add more than one CSS file.

Macros

Followed by a file path, adds that file to the set of macros used to process the document. This field may be specified multiple times to add more than one macro set.

FirstSection

Followed by a number, uses that number as the number of the first top-level section in the document. (Defaults to 1.)

You can actually add other metadata fields, but the above are the only ones that affect document processing at present.

All metadata fields can be inserted into your document text, however, by surrounding the field name with ‘@’ characters.

For example, Steven J Zeil last modified this document on Dec 31, 2025.