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HTML & HTML Entities for symbols to correct errors caused by text markdown combinations

Toni Bonitto edited this page Nov 14, 2017 · 1 revision

Example: Using markdown to italicize text that already contains 1 or more underscores can result in display errors.

Use HTML or HTML entities in Atom to fix this (previewing in GitHub does not work well).


Original text on How to Get Your Open Data on Data.gov (Issue 192):

Metadata Recommendations Supporting Data Discovery and Use in Data.gov and GeoPlatform.gov (add link when documented is updated at https://cms.geoplatform.gov/sites/default/files/document_library)

With markdown applied to italicize text that contains an underscore, it incorrectly displays the 2 markdown underscores, and does not italicize the text. It will look like this:

(_add link when documented is updated at https://cms.geoplatform.gov/sites/default/files/document_library_)

-- which also changes the URL and link, and would lead to a 404 error for users.

I am having trouble testing and previewing in GitHub (as a Wiki or Issue). It is easier to see in Atom; there, we can use either HTML or the HTML Entity to represent the text underscore in the URL between document and library to remove the conflict and allow the markdown to work.

To get:

(add link when documented is updated at https://cms.geoplatform.gov/sites/default/files/document_library)

  1. In code view, first change the underscore in document_library to the HTML Entity equivalent: document_library (the HTML would be _ or _)

  2. Then apply the italic markdown; either highlight the text and use the I formatting button, or just add an underscore at both the beginning and at the end of the section to be italicized.

HTML Entities List: https://www.freeformatter.com/html-entities.html

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