PHP Markdown Alternatives

PHP Markdown

Introduction

This is a library package that includes the PHP Markdown parser and its sibling PHP Markdown Extra with additional features. Originally it was a port to PHP of the Markdown tool written by John Gruber.

“Markdown” is two things: a plain text markup syntax, and a software tool that converts the plain text markup to HTML for publishing on the web.

The Markdown syntax allows you to write text naturally and format it without using HTML tags. More importantly: in Markdown format, your text stays enjoyable to read for a human being, and this is true enough that it makes a Markdown document publishable as-is, as plain text. If you are using text-formatted email, you already know some part of the syntax.

Visit the Concepts page for a short introduction full of examples where you will learn to write with Markdown. If you have some understanding of HTML, you can also read the full documentation of Markdown’s syntax, available on John’s web site.

Requirement

This library package requires PHP 5.3 or later.

Note: The older plugin/library hybrid package for PHP Markdown and PHP Markdown Extra is still maintained and will work with PHP 4.0.5 and later.

Before PHP 5.3.7, pcre.backtrack_limit defaults to 100 000, which is too small in many situations. You might need to set it to higher values. Later PHP releases defaults to 1 000 000, which is usually fine.