Markdown Syntax

Zim support markdown syntax as well as it's own wiki Syntax.

The goal for the implementation is to follow the https://commonmark.org/ specification of markdown, where extensions are based on either the GitHub version of the commonmark spec, and on pandoc.

NOTE: markdown syntax support is still experimental and may break for corner cases

When a new notebook is created, you can choose markdown as the default format. To convert an existing notebook, please check the Commandline Options for converting a notebook. If you are converting a notebook - do make a backup.

Limitations

The current parser implementation does not do a proper implementation for nested inlines, combinations of bold and italic do not always work properly.

The specification allows for blockquotes to be nested in lists, and lists to be nested in blockquotes. However to keep the editor behavior simple, zim only supports lists in blockquotes, but no blockquotes in lists.

Blockquotes are interpreted and visualized as indenting in the editor.

Extensions

Inlines

Zim supports:

subscript using "~", like "H~2~O" for H₂O
superscript using "^" like "x^2" for x²
strike through using "~~" like "~~deleted~~" for ~~deleted~~
Underline/mark using "__" like "__marked__" - this breaks the spec which determines "_" as an alternative to "*"

Links

Zim supports wiki links as "[[Page]]" or "[[Page|Link text]]". These are intended only for page links, as these can only be resolved using knowledge of the notebook and therefore do not translate 1-on-1 to file links. When exporting markdown, they will be converted to a regular link.

Lists

Zim supports letters instead of numbers for numbered lists like:

item 1
item 2
item 3

Pandoc attributes

Zim supports attibutes using "{...}" like pandoc does for:

Setting anchors in headings or elsewhere in the text using "{#name}"
Setting image properties like height and width like "{width=100px}"
As a special case setting the "type" attribute on images makes it behave as an inline object, e.g. for the equation editor plugin
Let a fenced code block become an inline object

Tabels

Zim supports tables using the table editor plugin

Zim - A Desktop Wiki