Markdown & Formatting Cheatsheet

A reference for everything you can type into a post here. It covers plain markdown, the iA Writer extensions this site renders, and the two custom blocks. Keyboard shortcuts are for iA Writer on Mac — where a feature has one, it’s noted next to the syntax.

This whole page is written in the syntax it documents, so it doubles as a live example.

#Keyboard shortcuts

The shortcuts below insert (or wrap the selection in) the matching markdown. On iA Writer they’re all in the main menu too.

Action	Keys
Bold	⌘ B
Italic	⌘ I
Strikethrough	⌥ ⌘ U
Highlight	⇧ ⌘ U
Inline code	⌘ J
Code block	⇧ ⌘ J
Heading level 1–6	⌘ 1 – ⌘ 6
Link	⌘ K
Image	⌥ ⌘ K
Wikilink	⇧ ⌘ K
Footnote	⌃ ⌘ K
Ordered list	⇧ ⌘ L
Task list	⌥ ⌘ L
Indent / Outdent	⇥ / ⇧ ⇥
Move line up / down	⌥ ⌘ ↑ / ⌥ ⌘ ↓

#Text formatting

Result	Type this	Shortcut
Bold	**bold**	⌘ B
Italic	*italic*	⌘ I
Bold italic	***both***	—
Strikethrough	~~struck~~	⌥ ⌘ U
Highlight	==marked==	⇧ ⌘ U
Inline code	`code`	⌘ J

#Headings

Up to six levels. On this site, in-body headings get a small hanging # self-link on hover.

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3

⌘ 1 through ⌘ 6 insert the matching level.

#Links & references

What	Type this	Shortcut
Link	[text](https://example.com)	⌘ K
Image		⌥ ⌘ K
Wikilink	[[Post Title]] or [[file-slug]]	⇧ ⌘ K
Footnote	text[^1] + [^1]: note	⌃ ⌘ K

Bare URLs auto-link — https://adilnussipov.com becomes a link on its own.

Wikilinks point to another post on this site by its title or file slug. Both forms resolve; an unmatched title renders as plain text and logs a build warning. Each target post automatically grows a “Referenced by” list of the posts that link to it.

Footnotes are reference-style — a marker in the text and the note anywhere below:

Coffee first, then the run.[^1]

[^1]: Ideally a pour-over, but drip is fine.

#Lists

- Bullet
- Another bullet
  - Nested bullet

1. First
2. Second
3. Third

⇧ ⌘ L starts an ordered list; ⌥ ⌘ L starts a task list (- [ ] to do). Note: this site renders task-list lines as ordinary bullets — the [ ] / [x] checkboxes aren’t styled.

#Quotes & pull quotes

A single > is a normal blockquote. A doubled >> is a large-type pull quote (no border, bigger text) — use it to lift one line out of the body.

> An ordinary blockquote, indented with a left rule.

>> A pull quote, set large and unbordered.

#Code

Inline code uses backticks (⌘ J). A fenced block uses three backticks, with an optional language after the opening fence (⇧ ⌘ J):

```js
const greeting = "hello";
```

#Custom blocks

Two block types unique to this site, opened with :::name and closed with a bare :::. They only affect the content they wrap.

Drop cap — enlarges the first letter of the paragraph:

:::dropcap
The opening letter of this paragraph becomes a large
capital in the serif face, and the first lines wrap
around it.
:::

Columns — :::cols-2 and :::cols-3 lay each block out across two or three equal columns, collapsing to one on narrow screens. Write the blocks in multiples of the column count for clean rows:

:::cols-2
Left column block.

Right column block.
:::

:::cols-3
First column block.

Second column block.

Third column block.
:::

#Tables

Pipe-delimited, with a divider row under the header. The colons in the divider set column alignment (left, center, right):

| Left | Center | Right |
|:-----|:------:|------:|
| a    | b      | c     |

#Horizontal rule

Three or more dashes on their own line:

---

#Table of contents

Put {{TOC}} on its own line and it’s replaced with a linked, auto-generated contents list built from the headings on the page (the one near the top of this post is exactly that).

#Topics

A #hashtag links to a topic page at /topics/<tag>/ that lists every post using it — for example #running or #writing. Only #word preceded by a space is matched, so URL fragments and heading marks are left alone. One-character tags and tags starting with a digit are best avoided.

#Smart typography

These convert automatically as you write — no shortcut needed:

Type this	Becomes
--	– (en dash)
---	— (em dash)
...	… (ellipsis)
"straight quotes"	“curly quotes”
'apostrophes'	‘curly apostrophes’

#Front matter

Every post opens with a YAML block between --- fences. title and date are required; the rest are optional:

---
title: "Your Title"
description: "One-line summary shown under the title."
date: 2026-07-07
grade: A          # optional: A, A-, B+, … — circled mark shown on hover
---

The grade gives the post a hand-drawn circled grade that springs in when you hover its title in a list. Posts without one still get the red wavy underline on hover.