Markdown is a simple markup language you can use to easily add formatting, links, and images to plain text. If Markdown is enabled in your account, you can use it in the following places:
- Ticket comments (from the agent interface)
- Macros
- Agent signatures
- Dynamic content
For agents to use Markdown, an administrator has to enable it in your account. (see Enabling formatting options for agents). You cannot use Markdown if rich-text is enabled for your account.
Topics covered in this article:
Adding Markdown to text
The following table shows examples of how you can use Markdown to add common formatting.
You can also watch this short video.
Formatting | Entered text | Published text |
---|---|---|
Bold | This is how you **bold** text. | ![]() |
Italics | This is how you *italicize* text. | ![]() |
Bulleted lists | * Bullet one (don't forget a space after the asterisk) * Bullet two
Note: You must type a line break before and after the list.
|
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Numbered lists | 1. Step one 2. Step two
Note: Do not use a hashtag (#) when creating numbered lists in Markdown, as the
symbol is used for other formatting.
Note: You must type a line break before and after the list.
|
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Nested lists | * This is the first level of this list. * To make a second level, add two spaces before the asterisk or number.
Note: You can add things like images, quote blocks, or links to a nested list in
addition to just text.
Note: You must type a line break before and after the list.
|
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Headings | # Heading level one (with a space after the #) ## Heading level two ### Heading level three You can add up to six heading levels.
Note: You can add a row of equal signs (=) under a line of text to create
Heading
level one, or a row of dashes (-) under a line of text to create a Heading
level two.
|
![]() |
Block quotes |
> Block quotes have to start and end with a blank line > And each line of the quote starts with a right angle bracket and a space |
![]() |
Inline code | Here is some `inline code.` | ![]() |
Code blocks | ``` This is a code block. ```
Note: Creating a blank line and then indenting the
next line or lines with four spaces creates a code block too.
Note: You must type a line break before and after the code block.
|
![]() |
Images |  Community tip! Evan shares a simple tip in our forums for embedding an image that's not hosted. |
![]() |
Links | [Link display text](http://www.sampleurl.com) | ![]() |
Images that are also links | [](linkurl) | ![]() |
Links to tickets | We addressed this in ticket #61. | ![]() |
Horizontal rule line |
---
Note: You must type a line break before and after the hyphens.
|
![]() |
Line break |
Line 1 Line 2
Note: You must type two line breaks before each .
|
Line 1
Line 2 |
Previewing Markdown in ticket comments
When you use Markdown in a ticket comment, you can preview your formatting before submitting the comment. You enter your comment with Markdown formatting, like in the example below.
Then, click Preview to view how your ticket comment will look when posted.
120 Comments
Hey Adrian -
To clarify, we're trying to determine where within the Zendesk suite of products you're looking to paste into - the functionality can differ a bit depending on where you are. Are you trying to paste the text you've copied into a ticket in Support or into a knowledge base article in Guide? Or somewhere else?
Hi Nicole, sorry I had thought you meant what was the source I was trying to paste from. It's into the ticket reply section with the Support product I'm pasting text and would like to be able to clear the formatting.
Thanks for the clarification!
Did you try Jessie's "paste & match style" trick? I just tested it out and that worked for me.
Is it possible to go in a 3rd level or more in a nested list? I've tried adding 4 spaces before the asterisk, with no luck.
Hey Jay,
You should be able to add a 3rd level by adding 4 additional spaces for each level. So for level 2 you would use 4 spaces before the asterisk. For level 3 you would use 8 spaces before the asterisk and so on.
Hope this helps!
Is there a chance to activate this feature to end-users?
Cheers,
David
Hi David,
There are not currently plans to enable markdown for end-users, but you can add your voice and vote to the product feedback discussion on this request if you wish.
Hi Guys
I'm having an unusual issue with a macro. I'm using numbers and bullets but when the macro is applied, instead of 1. 2. appearing, I'm seeing 1. 1 and the stars are not converting to bullet points.
The strange thing is when my colleague applies the macro the numbering looks ok but the bullets are not displaying. Also if I manually use 1. 2. 3. and the stars to create bullets it works fine as do other macros that contain this formatting.
I've tried creating the macro again from scratch but still, I'm seeing issues. I've also tried zendesk in an incognito tab but the issue is the same.
Any ideas what the issue might be here?
Thanks
Hi Ann,
I'm going to create a ticket on your behalf and pass over to our Customer Advocacy team. We'll most likely need to take a look at the macros you've set up and do some testing to see if we can replicate on our end.
You'll receive a follow-up email stating your ticket has been created so feel free to reply back to that email with any examples you have available.
Cheers!
Hi guys,
Can you anyone tell me how to change the width or size of the image while adding image to ticket?
I am able to add image as inline by
` [alternate_name](http_image_url_here) `
But I am not able to use markdown for adding a size for image.
A quick google search for markdown with image size landed me into here but it didn't work.
`https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14675913/changing-image-size-in-markdown`
The Syntax i found was
` [alternate_name](http_image_url_here =200x200) `
Thank you,
Anil
Nope, as far as I know, markdown resizing was never supported in Zendesk. Of course switching to rich text works with easy resizing.
ok thanks. I guess rich text is the solution, which is html formatting right.
Hello Anil, the rich text option is Zendesk's new text editor, I wouldn't exactly call it HTML, you can't edit in HTML in it. However it gives a much fuller writing and formatting experience
Oh, got it the rich text editor in the ticket while editing it. I can see how the image can see resized in this editor, that's cool.
The question i have here is, I am using zendesk api ( PHP) to create tickets, and I am having problem with resizing images in the body of the ticket when inlining them. Had there been any solution for this?
Hello Anil, thanks for clarifying.
I would have thought that HTML into the API would be okay, but that's not my area of expertise. It's also quite off topic for this thread, you'd get on better starting a new post outlining the situation and what you've tried.
Sorry, I'm not experienced in API so can't help as much as I would like.
All good, thank you Andrew.
I wrote here because I found the topic was about "Formatting text with Markdown" which may be helpful for APIs as well.
No probs, I understood markdown was for the plain text editor.
Could someome please summarize me the good reasons to use MarkDown over the Rich Text Editor. I am trying to make a decision to switch from 5 years of using Markdown to the Rich Text Editor and want to understand if there is any risk(s) with the switch on current open tickets or exisitng macros etc.. Thanks
Is there a way to align right/left/center using markdown?
Hi Mustafa -
I did a quick Google search and came up with this: "Aligning text in native markdown is not possible. However, you can align the text using inline HTML tags." See this conversation on Stack Overflow for more details:
How to right align and justify align in markdown
@Nora Mullen
How did you format this article so nicely? Is it just HTML, some WYSIWYG magic or markdown?
Hello Jarl Frode Arntzen,
Out articles are a combination of custom code via WYSIWYG and HTML, along with some in-house tools we have at our disposal. I would recommend starting with this guide to implement some of our customizations in your articles.
Creating and editing articles in the knowledge base
Best regards,
Devan - Community Manager
Thanks for the swift response.
So, the pale yellow "Note" sections in the articles has been implemented through manually adding <div class="note note" > ... </div> around the relevant text? Or is there some way we can add custom buttons to the editor which allow the writers to insert such custom formatting by simply selecting the text and clicking the relevant button?
I mean, manually adding such html tags is perfectly doable (we already have a custom theme and we have added the relevant CSS), but I'm just wondering if there's a way to make this even more user friendly for my co-workers.
Thanks.
Hey Jarl,
At this time there's no way to add custom buttons to the WYSIWYG editor in Guide natively. You may be able to set this up using custom code but you'd need to get your developers involved to help set this up.
Let us know if you have any other questions!
I've been de-bugging macros now for a week. Unfortunately, most of what is described above does not function in many situations.
For example: getting 1 line after a header, before a list (bullets); getting 1 line between bullets (it's either 0 or 2, from every combination I can); getting block quotes to only block quote the content line, not every empty line above it. It's been really, really frustrating.
Could we get an update on this article that include putting elements together, like header followed by a list (spacing & syntax)?
Getting 1 line between bullets, not 0 and not 2. (syntax)?
Hi,
did anybody find out how to create Tables in Mardown then? I tried Liquid - not working, tried html - not working either... So I was wondering if anyone found any solution to this, we really need to add tables to our tickets but for various reasons cannot switch to Rich Text...
Any help would be much appreciated!
Cheers
Hey Jiri,
Have you had a chance to look at our app marketplace? It looks like there's a Tables app created by Sparkly that will accomplish what you're looking for.
I hope this helps!
Hi Brett,
thanks for the suggestion but the App is useless if you have Markdown, it works only with Rich Text. We already tried and verified with the app developer. There seems to be no way how to add tables if you use Markdown... :(
Hey Jiri,
Thanks for getting back to me! I did some testing with markdown and tried creating a table but it doesn't look like this is possible in Zendesk. I'd recommend creating a feedback post in our Support Feedback Topic for our product managers to review.
I appreciate you taking the time to share this with us!
Currently I am using rich text and would like to move over to markdown. I'm seeing once markdown is enable all preexisting macros are not convert and are messy looking. Is there a way to have this convert easily or would I need to update macros manually?
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