Many of Amplify's longer text fields use Markdown to format text. You type ordinary characters around the words you want to format, such as two asterisks on each side for bold, and Amplify shows the formatted result. While you're editing a field, it shows the characters you typed. When you click away from it, it shows the formatted text.
This article covers both the Advanced and Simple Models. Markdown works the same way in both.
A field that supports Markdown shows the Markdown icon. Click it to open this article in a new tab.
Where Markdown works
Markdown formatting is applied in these places:
- The Description of an initiative, benefit, cost or RAID item. For a dependency, it's the Action Plan.
- Custom fields of the Free Text Area type, where Enable Markdown support is checked in the field's settings. The formatting shows wherever the field appears, including on the Initiative Workbook and on status reports.
- The Description widget on the Initiative Workbook and on status reports.
- Chat messages.
- Comments added when requesting or responding to an approval.
- The Assessment Criteria for each stage of a stage gate process, which administrators set.
Other text fields, such as names and Free Text Field custom fields, show the characters exactly as you typed them. Notification emails that include chat messages or approval comments apply the formatting too, though some details can look slightly different from Amplify.
Formatting reference
| Style | Type this | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Bold |
**Bold text** or __Bold text__
|
Bold text |
| Italics |
*Italic text* or _Italic text_
|
Italic text |
| Bold and italics | ***Bold italic text*** |
Bold italic text |
| Heading |
# Heading to ###### Heading
|
A heading. One # is the largest and six is the smallest. Leave a space after the last #. |
| Bulleted list |
- First item- Second item
|
|
| Numbered list |
1. First item2. Second item
|
|
| Quote | > Quoted text |
The text is indented, with a bar beside it. Add more > characters to nest a quote inside another. |
| Link | [Link text](https://www.example.com) |
Link text |
| Web address as a link | <https://www.example.com> |
https://www.example.com |
| Code | `code` |
code |
| Code block |
``` on the line above the code, and on the line below it |
The lines between are shown as typed, in a monospaced font. |
| Horizontal line |
--- on its own line, with a blank line above it |
A line across the field. |
| Image |  |
The image at that address. The address must start with https://. |
| Character shown as typed | \* |
* (the backslash stops the character from formatting the text) |
Paragraphs and line breaks
Pressing Enter once doesn't start a new line in the formatted text. The two lines are joined, with a space between them.
- New paragraph — leave a blank line between the paragraphs.
-
New line in the same paragraph — end the line with a backslash (
\).
Lists
Lists format correctly where:
- there's a blank line above the list.
- there's a space after each
-,*,+or number.
A numbered list is numbered in order, starting from the first number you type. The numbers on the lines that follow don't change it.
To put a list inside another, indent the inner list's lines so they start under the text of the item above. Chat messages don't keep indenting, so lists in chat can't be nested.
What Markdown in Amplify doesn't support
- Tables.
- Strikethrough, underline, text color and text size.
- Checkboxes.
- HTML tags. Use Markdown instead.
- Web addresses typed on their own aren't turned into links. Put the address between
<and>, or use a link.
Things to watch for
- Indenting with spaces — in a field, a line that starts with four or more spaces, or a tab, is shown as code. Its other formatting isn't applied.
-
Dashes under a line — a line of text with
---or===on the line directly below it becomes a heading. To draw a horizontal line instead, leave a blank line above the dashes. - Asterisks and underscores — a pair of them around text formats it. To show the characters themselves, type a backslash before each one.
- Character limits — the formatting characters count toward the field's character limit.
To turn on Markdown for a custom field, see Custom Fields (Advanced Model) or Custom Fields (Simple Model). For chat messages, see Chat and Mentions.