The Basics

Welcome to the Leanpub Browser book writing editor! This page is where you will be writing your book. This file is a working, real example of how to write a book chapter in plain text with Markdown formatting (which we’ll explain briefly below).

This is a paragraph. You just write.

Blank lines are used to separate paragraphs.

To make italic text you surround it with single asterisks. To make bold text you surround it with double asterisks.

You can preview or publish your ebook by clicking a button!

To preview your book:

1. Click Useful Links on the left
2. Click Preview Page
3. Click the Create Preview button

To publish your book:

• Click Useful Links on the left
• Click Publish Page
• Click the Publish Book button

Yes, these instructions are not just help text: they are also a book manuscript which you can preview or even publish!

Once the book has been generated, you can download it in PDF or EPUB format to see what it looks like.

In fact, we’ve already created a preview of your brand new book for you, just now!

Just click on the Useful Links on the left, and click the Preview Page link to see it!

(If you get to the preview page and there are no ebook links yet, congratulations: you’re a really fast reader! In that case, just wait a minute and then reload the page to see them.)

Or, if you don’t believe book publishing could possibly be this easy, just edit some of the text on this page and create your own preview from the Preview page by clicking the Create Preview button.

You can start new chapters by starting a line with a # sign and a space, and then typing your chapter title, just like you can see at the top of this page, where you see # The Basics on a line by itself.

You can create multiple chapters in one file, but we recommend one chapter per file. This way, your manuscript files will be easier to navigate. So, for example, this chapter is contained in the file named “The Basics” that you can see listed under the “Manuscript” menu to the left. “The Basics” is in bold in the menu, because it is the file that is currently selected.

(If you start typing in here, the Manuscript menu and all the other menus will go away, so that you can relax and focus on your writing! Just click outside of this text area, and all the menus will come back.)

You can make a thematic break with three asterisks, like this:

By the way, the above formatting is actually all you need to know to write a typical novel using Markdown formatting! To write a technical book, however, you’ll need to know a bit more Markdown, and learn a bit about Markua.

The dialect of Markdown used at Leanpub is called Markua.

Markdown is great, but it doesn’t have support for certain things that many books need. These include index entries, crosslinks, endnotes, external code samples, etc. So, we’ve added these to Markdown, by extending Markdown in an open specification called Markua.

The Markua spec is here.

However, that spec is really long, and there are a few advanced things in the spec which aren’t fully supported in Leanpub yet.

So, if you want to learn how to get started writing in Markua on Leanpub, see the next chapter, Writing in Markua, by clicking the Writing in Markua chapter under the Manuscript menu to the left.

This chapter will show you everything you need to know about how to use all the important parts of Markdown and Markua to create a technical book, including how to use…

• lists
• images
• code samples
• tables
• math
• resource attributes
• document settings
• asides and blurbs
• index entries
• crosslinks

Seriously, unless you already know everything about Markua, you should strongly consider looking at that chapter. It may save you a bunch of time!

You should probably generate a preview of this version of your book next, to save a copy of these helpful instructions. (The Writing in Markua chapter can come in handy!)

Click on the Versions tab above to go to the Preview page, and then click Create Preview to do that.

At this point, there are two good ways to proceed. You can either read a tutorial and follow along, or you can just go for it!

(If you’re feeling adventurous, just go for it. The tutorial is linked on the Help > Getting Started page, so you can always read it later…)

If this is your first time writing a Leanpub book in our Browser writing mode, after you’ve read the Writing in Markua we recommend you read our full tutorial here. That tutorial will guide you through every step, including previewing versions for your review, and even publishing the first version of your book when you’re ready!