Working with Markdown Features

This topic discusses how to implement Markdown features using Aspose.Words. Markdown is a simple way to format plain text that can easily be converted to HTML. Aspose.Words supports the following Markdown features:

• Headings
• Blockquotes
• Horizontal rules
• Bold emphasis
• Italic emphasis

The Markdown feature implementation mostly follows the CommonMark specification in Aspose.Words API and all the features are represented as corresponding styles or direct formatting. Which means that

• Bold and Italic are represented as Font.Bold and Font.Italic. 
• Headings are paragraphs with Heading 1 - Heading 6 styles. 
• Quotes are paragraphs with “Quote” in the style name. 
• HorizontalRule is a paragraph with a HorizontalRule shape.

There are nuances of translating Markdown to the Aspose.Words Document Object Model (DOM), described in the article Translate Markdown to Document Object Model (DOM).

Markdown Document with Emphases

This section demonstrates you how to produce a markdown document with emphases as given below:

Markdown treats asterisks (*) and underscores (_) as indicators of emphasis.
You can write **bold** or *italic* text. 
You can also write ***BoldItalic***text.

The following code snippet can be used to produce the above-given markdown document.

Markdown Document with Headings

This section demonstrates you how to produce a markdown document with headings as given below:

The following produces headings:
# Heading1
## Heading2
### Heading3
#### Heading4
##### Heading5
###### Heading6
# **Bold Heading1**

The following code snippet can be used to produce the above given markdown document.

Markdown Document with Block Quotes

This section demonstrates you how to produce a markdown document with block quotes as given below:

We support blockquotes in Markdown:
>*Lorem*
>*ipsum*
>The quotes can be of any level and can be nested:
>>>Quote level 3
>>>
>>>>Nested quote level 4
>
>*Back to first level*
>### Headings are allowed inside Quotes
>

The following code snippet can be used to produce the above given markdown document.

Markdown Document with Horizontal Rule

This section demonstrates you how to produce a markdown document with Horizontal Rule as given below:

We support Horizontal rules (Thematic breaks) in Markdown:
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The following code snippet can be used to produce the above-given markdown document.

Reading a Markdown Document

The following code snippet shows you how to read a markdown document.

Specify Markdown Save Options

Aspose.Words API provides MarkdownSaveOptions class to specify additional options while saving a document into the Markdown format.

The following code example demonstrated how to specify various Markdown save options.

How to Align Content Inside the Table while Exporting into Markdown

Aspose.Words API provides TableContentAlignment enumeration which defines alignment directions to align contents in tables while exporting into the Markdown document. The following code example demonstrates how to align content inside the table.

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FAQ

1. Q: Which Markdown elements are currently supported by Aspose.Words for Java?
   A: Aspose.Words for Java implements the CommonMark subset and supports headings (levels 1‑6), bold and italic emphasis, block quotes, horizontal rules, and tables (when using TableContentAlignment). Each element is mapped to a corresponding Word style or direct formatting.

2. Q: How can I convert an existing Markdown file to a Word document (.docx) using Java?
   A: Load the Markdown file with MarkdownLoadOptions and then save it as a DOCX. Example:

   Document doc = new Document("input.md", new MarkdownLoadOptions());
   doc.save("output.docx");
   

   The load options let you control how unknown tags are handled.

3. Q: Can I preserve custom styles or additional formatting when converting Markdown to Word?
   A: Yes. By customizing MarkdownLoadOptions you can map specific Markdown constructs to custom Word styles. Use the setStyleIdentifier or setStyleName methods to associate a Markdown element with a style defined in the target document.

4. Q: How do I export a Word document to Markdown while controlling the alignment of table contents?
   A: Use MarkdownSaveOptions together with the TableContentAlignment enumeration. Set the desired alignment (e.g., TableContentAlignment.Center) on the save options before calling save. This ensures table cells are rendered with the chosen alignment in the resulting Markdown file.

5. Q: Is it possible to enable additional CommonMark extensions, such as task lists or footnotes, during conversion?
   A: Aspose.Words for Java follows the core CommonMark specification. Extensions like task lists or footnotes are not natively supported, but you can preprocess the Markdown (e.g., replace extension syntax with standard Markdown) before loading it with MarkdownLoadOptions.