This would be the correct rendering-alas that's not the case in Roam: _You can't bold part of an italicized text._Īs you see, the bold Markdown gets processed, but not the Markdown for italics. If you do, it'll look something like this: That means that you can nest _ within **, but you can't nest ** within _. While you can italicize part of a bolded text, you can't bold part of an italicized text. While Roam's Markdown flavor is solid overall, it also has a quirk to keep in mind. Alternatively, use the Ctrl/Cmd-h shortcut.

To highlight a snippet of text, add ^^ to both sides. This isn't part of most Markdown flavors, but I'm glad Roam did decide to add it. Last but not least, it's also possible to highlight text in Roam using Markdown. In this case, Roam follows most flavors' syntax. To strikethrough text in Roam you simply add ~~ on both sides of the text. Roam's syntax differs from most Markdown flavors in that it uses double underscores, whereas most other editors use a single underscore on both sides to italicize text. You can also use the Ctrl/Cmd-i keyboard shortcut to achieve the same. To italicize text in Roam, you need to add _ (double underscore) to both sides if the text snippet. This is the same syntax that's used in most Markdown editors. An even quicker way is to hit the Ctrl/Cmd-b keyboard shortcut to have Roam add the asterisks and place the cursor in the middle. To bold a snippet of text, you simply need to add ** on both side. But, as with many Markdown flavors, Roam does a few things differently. Things like bolding, italicizing, and striking through are easily done with Markdown. The most used Markdown syntax is probably to style text. In this article I'll mention where the Roam Markdown flavor differs from the standard (GitHub) flavor. One popular way to convert large volumes of Roam Markdown to standard Markdown is by using the note-taking app Obsidian (by the creators of Dynalist). In Roam, you need _ (double underscores) on each side to italicize a phrase.īecause of this, it’s sometimes necessary to clean up the exported files before you can use them in other Markdown apps (although this depends on the app). Each app has its own needs and shortcodes, so Markdown formats differ a bit.įor example, the most popular Markdown flavor ( Github) uses a single * or _ on each side of a phrase to italicize it. It’s important to mention that not all apps use the same version (also called “flavor”) of Markdown. How the formatting is interpreted depends on the writing tool you're using as not all use the same version of Markdown. That's not the case with Markdown.Īs you see, the formatting is all done via plain text. While many editors and word processors have shortcuts to style text (like **bold**, _italics_, or ~~strikethrough~~), copying your text outside of these tools will remove all formatting. In Markdown, the paragraph above looks like this: () is a way to style text on the web or note-taking apps, using plain text only. While many editors and word processors have shortcuts to style text (like bold, italics, or strikethrough), copying your text outside of these tools will remove all formatting.

Markdown is a way to style text on the web or note-taking apps, using plain text only. In this article, I'll show you everything you need to know for frictionless entry of formatted text in Roam.

The Daily Notes Page is one application of this principle, but so is Markdown. Roam is a note-taking tool with an important principle: frictionless entry of information.

Bold markdown