The Markua Manual
The Markua Manual
How to Write in Markua on Leanpub
About the Book
Imagine you owned a magical typewriter.
When you used this magical typewriter, you wrote with fewer distractions. You didn't just write faster, you wrote better.
With your magical typewriter, you never worried about layout. The book formatted itself.
You could hit a key on your magical typewriter to create an ebook from your manuscript with one click.
All ebook formats would be created, and they'd all look good. You'd have PDF for computers, MOBI for Kindle, and EPUB for everywhere else. The book would look great on phones.
With your magical typewriter, you could publish your book before it was even done, and get feedback from readers all over the world. You could automatically share book updates with them. You would press one key on your magical typewriter to publish a new version, and all your readers would have it instantly.
With your magical typewriter, you could easily compare your current manuscript to any other version of your manuscript that had ever existed.
When the book was done, if you decided to make a print book, you could press a key on your magical typewriter to generate InDesign with one click. Your designer or publisher could use this as a starting point for producing a great looking print book.
With your magical typewriter, you'd only have to do one thing: Write.
Wouldn't it be great if such a magical typewriter existed?
It does. At Leanpub, we're building it.
But there's one requirement for this magical typewriter to exist: a simple, coherent, open source, free, plain text format for a book manuscript.
This simple format is what authors will write their books in, instead of Word. It will enable an ecosystem of tools to emerge around it.
This simple format will be the basis for the magical typewriter.
This simple format is called Markua.
This is its user manual.
Packages
The Book
English
PDF
EPUB
MOBI
WEB
Ten Copies
English
PDF
EPUB
MOBI
WEB
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
-
Introduction
- The Magical Typewriter
- How to Write a Novel in Markua
- How to Write a Computer Programming Book in Markua
- How to Write a Course (MOOC) in Markua
- Markua: Markdown for Books and Courses
- Why the Name “Markua”?
- The Markua Manual vs. The Markua Spec
- Markua 0.10 and Markua 0.29
- Differences with Leanpub Flavoured Markdown (LFM)
- Acknowledgments
- Text Formatting
- Headings
- Paragraphs and Blank Lines
-
Resources
-
Resource Insertion Methods
- Figures
- Spans
- Inserting Resources Into a Span Context
-
Resource Locations
- Local Resources
- Web Resources
- Inline Resources
-
Resource Types and Formats
- Images
- Video
- Audio
- Code
- Math
- Tables
-
Resource Insertion Methods
-
Whitespace: Spaces, Tabs and Newlines
-
Newlines
- Single Newline = Forced Line Break
- Three or More Newlines = Two Newlines = One Blank Line
- One Blank Line Is Added When Concatenating Manuscript Files
- All Blank Lines at the Beginning and End of a File are Removed
-
Spaces and Tabs
- Spaces and Tabs at the Beginning of a Line are Only to Determine List Containment, and Extra Spaces are Removed
- Spaces and Tabs at the End of a Line are Removed
- Internal Spaces are Collapsed to One Space, Except At the End of Sentences
-
Newlines
- Lists
- Definition Lists
-
Block Elements
-
Scene Breaks (
* * *
) -
Blockquotes (
>
) -
Asides (
A>
or{aside}
) -
Blurbs (
B>
or{blurb}
)- Supported Attributes for Blurbs
-
Syntactic Sugar for Specific Blurb Classes:
D>
,E>
,I>
,Q
,T
,W>
,X>
-
Using Blurbs to Center Text with
C>
-
Using Extension Attributes on Blurbs to add
icon
Support
-
Scene Breaks (
-
Quizzes and Exercises
- Quiz and Exercise Headings and Other Content
- An Empty Quiz or Exercise is Not an Error
- A Malformed Quiz or Exercise is an Error
- Supported Attributes on Quizzes and/or Exercises
-
Question Types: Multiple Choice, Fill In The Blank
- Multiple Choice Questions
- Fill In The Blank Questions
- Creating a Course or MOOC from a Markua Document
- Question Alternates
-
Span Elements
-
Links
- Inline Links
- Automatic Links
-
Explicitly Creating Spans with
[
…]
- Sometimes a Square Bracket is Just a Square Bracket
-
Footnotes and Endnotes
- Footnotes
- Endnotes
- Single Reference to Footnotes and Endnotes
- Footnotes and Endnotes Support Required for Paragraphs Only
-
Crosslinks and ids
- Defining an id
-
Referencing an
id
With a Crosslink -
Rules for
id
s and Crosslinks
-
Character Substitution (
X--
for X—,X --
for X –,...
for …)- Optional Automatic Curly Quotes Outside of Code Blocks and Spans
-
Escaping Special Characters with Backslash (
\
) -
Code Spans and Backticks (
`
)
-
Links
-
Metadata
-
Attributes
- Attribute List Format
- Attribute Keys
- Attribute Values
-
id
Attributes -
Conditional Inclusion Attributes on Headings:
book
,sample
- Directives
- Page Breaks
-
Attributes
-
Appendices
- No Inline HTML
- Differences with Markdown
Authors have earned$9,883,643writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
C++ Best Practices
Jason TurnerLevel up your C++, get the tools working for you, eliminate common problems, and move on to more exciting things!
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
Functional Design and Architecture
Alexander GraninSoftware Design in Functional Programming, Design Patterns and Practices, Methodologies and Application Architectures. How to build real software in Haskell with less efforts and low risks. The first complete source of knowledge.
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
C++20
Rainer GrimmC++20 is the next big C++ standard after C++11. As C++11 did it, C++20 changes the way we program modern C++. This change is, in particular, due to the big four of C++20: ranges, coroutines, concepts, and modules.
I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge
Alexis Monville and Michael DoyleI am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge is a real-world, practical book that helps you increase your impact and satisfaction at work no matter who you work with.
In the book, we will follow Sandrine, a fictional character who learns to think in a new way enabling her to take a different course of action.
Atomic Kotlin
Bruce Eckel and Svetlana IsakovaFor both beginning and experienced programmers! From the author of the multi-award-winning Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java together with a member of the Kotlin language team comes a book that breaks the concepts into small, easy-to-digest "atoms," along with exercises supported by hints and solutions directly inside IntelliJ IDEA!
Invest In Digital Health - The Medical Futurist's Guide
Dr. Bertalan MeskoArtificial Intelligence and Digital Health are booming. In this book, we explain why now it's a good time to invest in Digital Health and give recommendations on where to invest by looking at the top 24 technological trends we find the most promising.
The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book
Andriy BurkovEverything you really need to know in Machine Learning in a hundred pages.
Mastering STM32
Carmine NovielloWith more than 600 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the first guide around that introduces the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #3
The Future of Digital Health
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy and how technology giants such as Amazon or Google want to conquer... - #4
Cisco CCNA 200-301 Complet
4 Books
Ce lot comprend les quatre volumes du guide préparation à l'examen de certification Cisco CCNA 200-301. - #5
CCDE Practical Studies (All labs)
3 Books
CCDE lab - #6
"The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++"
2 Books
Get my books "The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++" in a bundle. The first book gives you the details you should know about the C++ standard library; the second one dives deeper into concurrency with modern C++. In sum, you get more than 600 pages full of modern C++ and about 250 source files presenting the standard library... - #7
Modern Management Made Easy
3 Books
Read all three Modern Management Made Easy books. Learn to manage yourself, lead and serve others, and lead the organization. - #8
Linux Administration Complet
4 Books
Ce lot comprend les quatre volumes du Guide Linux Administration :Linux Administration, Volume 1, Administration fondamentale : Guide pratique de préparation aux examens de certification LPIC 1, Linux Essentials, RHCSA et LFCS. Administration fondamentale. Introduction à Linux. Le Shell. Traitement du texte. Arborescence de fichiers. Sécurité... - #9
Programming with Ease
3 Books
Alle drei Bände der Serie Programming with Ease in einem Paket. Darin findest du alles, was ich dir zu den wichtigsten Phasen der Softwareentwicklung im Hinblick auf Clean Code Development für langfristig hohe Produktivität sagen kann.Im Band Slicing findest du die Anforderungsanalyse im Rahmen eines iterativ-inkrementellen Vorgehensmodells aus... - #10
Vagrant Ansible
2 Books
Unveil the power of Ansible and Vagrant with this bundle at a special price. You'll have everything you need to get started with Vagrant - learn the basics and how to create your virtual development environments, using Ansible as provisioner! About Vagrant Cookbook Vagrant Cookbook is a complete guide to get started with Vagrant and create your...