---
name: "markdown"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "discount"
version: "3.0.2.0-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/markdown"
---

# markdown(1)

text to html conversion tool

## NAME

**markdown** – text to html conversion tool

## SYNOPSIS

**markdown** \[**-d**\] \[**-T**\] \[**-V**\] \[**-b** *url-base*\] \[**-C** *prefix*\] \[**-F** *bitmap*\] \[**-f** *flags*\] \[**-n**\] \[**-o** *file*\] \[**-S**\] \[**-s** *text*\] \[**-t** *text*\] \[**-toc**\] \[*textfile*\]

## DESCRIPTION

The **markdown** utility reads the [markdown(7)](/markdown/7.md)-formatted *textfile* (or stdin if not specified,) compiles it, and writes the html output to stdout.

The options are as follows:

- **-b** *url-base*

  Links in source beginning with / will be prefixed with *url-base* in the output.

- **-C**

  When processing markdown extra-style footnotes, use the given prefix instead of the default of *fn*.

- **-d**

  Instead of writing the html file, dump a parse tree to stdout.

- **-f** *flags*

  Set or clear various translation flags.   The flags are in a comma-delimited list, with an optional *+* (enable), *-* (disable), or *no* (disable) lprefix on each flag.

  - *links*

    Allow links.

  - *image*

    Allow images.

  - *smarty*

    Enable smartypants.

  - *pants*

    Enable smartypants.

  - *html*

    Allow raw html.

  - *strict*

    Disable superscript, strikethrough & relaxed emphasis.

  - *ext*

    Enable pseudo-protocols.

  - *cdata*

    Generate code for xml  *!\[CDATA\[...\]\]*.

  - *superscript*

    Enable superscript processing.

  - *emphasis*

    Emphasis happens  *everywhere*.

  - *tables*

    Don't process PHP Markdown Extra tables.

  - *del*

    Enable *~~strikethrough~~*.

  - *strikethrough*

    Enable  *~~strikethrough~~*.

  - *toc*

    Enable table-of-contents processing.

  - *1.0*

    Compatibility with MarkdownTest\_1.0

  - *autolink*

    Make *http://foo.com* a link even without *\<\>*.

  - *safelink*

    Paranoid check for link protocol.

  - *header*

    Process pandoc-style header blocks.

  - *tabstop*

    Expand tabs to 4 spaces.

  - *divquote*

    Allow *\>%class%* blocks.

  - *alphalist*

    Allow alphabetic lists.

  - *definitionlist*

    Allow definition lists at all (default). Use *dldiscount* and *dlextra* to control which syntaxes are respected.

  - *dldiscount*

    Enable discount-style definition lists (default).

  - *dlextra*

    Enable extra-style definition lists (not default). Both styles may be enabled simultaneously.

  - *footnote*

    Allow markdown extra-style footnotes.

  - *style*

    Extract \<style\> blocks from the output.

  - *fencedcode*

    Allow fenced code blocks (not default).

  - *idanchor*

    Use id= anchors for table-of-contents links instead of \<a name=/\> (not default).

  - *githubtags*

    Allow underscore and dash in passed through element names (not default).

  - *urlencodedanchor*

    Use url-encoded chars for multibyte and nonalphanumeric chars rather than dots in toc links.

    As an example, the option **-f** *nolinks,smarty* tells **markdown** to not allow \<a tags, and to do smarty pants processing.

- **-F** *bitmap*

  Set translation flags. *Bitmap* is a bit map of the various configuration options described in [markdown(3)](/markdown/3.md) (the flag values are defined in *mkdio.h*)

- **-n**

  Don't write generated html.

- **-o** *file*

  Write the generated html to  *file*.

- **-S**

  output \<style\> blocks.

- **-V**

  Show the version# and compile-time configuration data.

  If the version includes the string *DEBUG*, **markdown** was configured with memory allocation debugging.

  If the version includes the string *TAB*, **markdown** was configured to use the specified tabstop.

- **-VV**

  Show the version#, the compile-time configuration, and the run-time configuration.

- **-t** *text*

  Use mkd\_text(3) to format  *text* instead of processing stdin with the [markdown(3)](/markdown/3.md) function.

- **-T**

  If run with the table-of-content flag on, dump the table of contents before the formatted text.

- **-s** *text*

  Use the [markdown(3)](/markdown/3.md) function to format *text*.

- **-toc**

  Set the table-of-content flag, then dump the table of contents before the formatted text (a shorthand for  **--T** **--toc** )

## RETURN VALUES

The **markdown** utility exits 0 on success, and \>0 if an error occurs.

## SEE ALSO

[markdown(3)](/markdown/3.md), [markdown(7)](/markdown/7.md), [mkd-extensions(7)](/mkd-extensions/7.md).

## AUTHOR

David Parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us)