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 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: How are headings represented when converting a document to Markdown?
   A: Headings are stored as paragraphs that use the built‑in Heading 1 through Heading 6 styles. When saved as Markdown, Aspose.Words writes them as # … ###### prefixes that correspond to the heading level.

2. Q: How can I control the alignment of table cells in the generated Markdown file?
   A: Use the MarkdownSaveOptions.table_content_alignment property and set it to a value from the TableContentAlignment enumeration (e.g., TableContentAlignment.LEFT, CENTER, or RIGHT). The setting determines how the pipe‑separated table columns are aligned in the output.

3. Q: Can I include a table of contents in a Markdown document created with Aspose.Words?
   A: Yes. Insert a TOC field in the document (doc.Range.Fields.Add(doc.FirstSection.Body, aw.fields.FieldType.FIELD_TOC, True)). When the document is saved as Markdown, the TOC is rendered as a list of links that point to the generated heading anchors.

4. Q: How do I apply bold and italic formatting in Markdown using the API?
   A: Set Font.Bold = True for bold text and Font.Italic = True for italic text on the relevant Run objects. When saved, Aspose.Words emits **bold** and *italic* markup respectively.

5. Q: What options are available to customize the Markdown output?
   A: The MarkdownSaveOptions class lets you control many aspects, such as ExportHeadersFooters, ExportImagesAsBase64, ExportListItemsAsTaskList, and TableContentAlignment. Adjust these properties before calling doc.Save("output.md", saveOptions) to tailor the generated Markdown.