Quick start guides: how to add images, how to add links
Intro
PokeBase uses Markdown (an easy markup language) for text formatting. It can also process HTML, which you can learn quickly online.
This answer will demonstrate all the techniques you need to make well-formatted posts. It won't cover every last possibility. This Markdown cheatsheet has some other features you might find useful (or you can read the Markdown spec).
Note that text formatting is only active for the body text of questions and answers. You cannot format comments, question titles, wall posts, or profile pages.
Please use formatting tastefully (e.g. do not bold your entire post). Note that there are some bugs with the "preview" feature that causes inconsistencies with the real appearance of the post once it is submitted.
Formatting guide
Bold text: Add two apostrophes ** or two underscores __ at the start and end of the text you want to highlight. Alternatively, you can use the <b> or <strong> HTML tags.
Italic text: Add one apostrophe * or underscore _ at the start and end of the text you want to highlight. Alternatively, you can use the <i> or <em> HTML tags.
Code snippet: Add a "backquote" ` to the start and end of the text you want to highlight. Alternatively, you can use the "code" HTML tag.
Hyperlink: Contain the text you want to link inside [ ] cornered braces, then immediately after this, paste the link to the webpage inside normal brackets ( ). Alternatively, click the planet icon in the bar above the text box and follow its instructions. Do not erase the code it generates. You can also use the <a href=""> tag if you're familiar with HTML. This guide gives a fuller overview of hyperlinking.
Strikethrough text: Use the <s> HTML tag. On PokeBase, you cannot create strikethrough text using Markdown.
Superscript text: Use the <sup> HTML tag. There is no native Markdown shortcut for superscript text, but this HTML method works. Repeated use of the tag shrinks text even more.
Subscript text: Use the <sub> HTML tag. There is no native Markdown shortcut for subscript text, but this HTML method works. Repeated use of the tag shrinks text even more.
Deleted text: Use the <del> HTML tag. There is no native Markdown shortcut for deleted text, but this HTML method works.
Inserted text: Use the <ins> HTML tag. There is no native Markdown shortcut for inserted text, but this HTML method works. Note in the answer preview, this appears to fail, but will actually work.
Heading text: Add a hash # to the front of the line of text you want to emphasize. You do not need to add another hash to end the header text; anything you put on the same line will be formatted as a heading. You can also use the HTML tag <h2>, or place hyphens --- underneath the text you want to emphasise.
Looks like this.
Subheading text: Add two hashes ## to the front of the line of text you want to emphasize. Mechanically, this works identically to the heading text, except it is a bit smaller. You can also call it with the HTML tag <h3>.
Looks like this.
Blockquoted text: Add a right-angled bracket (aka 'more than' sign) > followed by a space in front of the text you want to highlight. Everything until the next double line break with be quoted (and you can connect paragraphs in a blockquote by putting > in front of every line, including blanks). You can also put a blockquote within a blockquote, and use other Markdown elements inside a blockquote. You can also use the <blockquote> HTML tag to achieve this effect.
Looks like this.
Block of code: Add four spaces at the front of the line of text you want to format. Everything in that line of text will be formatted within a block of code.
Looks like this.
Unordered (bullet-point) list: Add an apostrophe * or a hyphen - before the text you want to format. This will indent it and place a bullet point in front of it. Ensure there is an empty line above the first item, or the list formatting will break. Adding a space in front of the apostrophe or hyphen can allow you to add multiple layers of indentation in an existing list. (You can also create lists if you know how to use the <ul> and <li> HTML tags.)
Ordered (numbered) list: Add a number followed by a full stop and a space to start a numbered list with indentation. Ensure there is an empty line above the first item, or the list formatting will break. It does not matter what numbers you use in the list; they will always switch to 1, 2, 3, etc. and restart at 1 following a paragraph break. You can also use <ol> and <li> to create a numbered list.
- Looks
- like
- this.
Sublist: Put three spaces in front of a list item that should be part of a sublist. The sublist can be ordered or unordered. This can also be achieved with appropriate use of <ul>/<ol> and <li> tags. You can also use three spaces to indent a paragraph with a list if it has been separated by a double line break.
- Looks
- like
- this
- and
- this.
Image: There are several ways to insert an image, each with advantages and disadvantages. Refer to this guide to see each method.
Divider: Make sure there is an empty line of text, then after it on another line, place at least three asterisks ***, hyphens ---, dashes ––– or underscores ___.
Escaping characters: You can disable Markdown formatting for a set of characters by placing a backslash \ before it. This is helpful if you don't want your writing to be interpreted as formatting. For example, **this text should be bold**, but it isn't because I escaped the asterisks. Note that this is a Markdown command and it won't work for HTML features here.
