Introduction
Leanpub Flavoured Markdown vs. Markua
On Leanpub, there are two ways to write in plain text:
- Leanpub Flavoured Markdown (LFM)
- Markua 0.10
Leanpub Flavoured Markdown came first; Markua is its replacement. Both LFM and Markua are dialects of Markdown. Markua is newer and better than LFM, but there are still some advanced features in Markua that aren’t finished yet.
The version of Markua that Leanpub uses is Markua 0.10. It is documented here.
To write in LFM or Markua, you need to be in Dropbox, GitHub or Bitbucket writing mode, or you need to be writing in the Leanpub In-Browser Text Editor. The Leanpub Visual Editor, Google Docs and Bring Your Own Book mode do not support LFM or Markua formatting.
There are six good reasons to write a book in Markua:
- Markua is better than LFM. A lot better. Markua fixes the many mistakes we made with LFM.
- Markua is the future of Leanpub.
- Markua has more features than LFM.
- If you want to create a course on Leanpub, you need to use Markua.
- The Leanpub In-Browser Text Editor is better with Markua now, and it’s going to be way better soon. (We’re working on an upgrade to the Leanpub In-Browser Text Editor which will only be available for Markua books.)
- The Markua Manual is newer and better than the Leanpub Flavoured Markdown Manual.
There are two good reasons to write a book in LFM:
- You already started your book in LFM and you don’t want to convert it yet.
- You are writing a translation of a book which is written in LFM.
Switching Writing Modes
If you have an existing Leanpub book and you want to switch writing modes, you go here:
Author > Books > (your book) > Settings > Writing Mode
Again, Google Docs, our Visual Editor and Bring Your Own Book do not support Markua or LFM formatting.
Once you’ve chosen an appropriate writing mode, you then can switch between the Markua and LFM dialects of Markdown here:
Author > Books > (your book) > Settings > Markdown Dialect
Scope of this Manual
This manual explains how to write in Leanpub Flavoured Markdown, or LFM for short.
This manual does not explain how to use Leanpub, just how to write in LFM.
To learn more about how to use Leanpub, you can see The Leanpub Manual.
If you can’t find the answers there, there are 3 ways to get help…
- Search our Help Center at http://help.leanpub.com/
- Join the Leanpub Forum at https://community.leanpub.com/c/authors and post your question there. Our authors enjoys helping each other out! Please ask all general questions here.
- If you have a specific problem that you don’t want to post on the forum, email us at hello@leanpub.com and we’ll be happy to help you.
To learn more about Leanpub Flavoured Markdown, read on…