Moodle Markdown editing – hidden treasure Part 2

Part 2 of our “What is Markdown and how can you use it in Moodle” series.

Last month we looked at what Markdown is: https://wp.me/p8KJp1-No

This month we will look at how and where you can use Markdown in Moodle.

So, the first thing to do is check your Editor preferences:

You may have been here before to set your Forum preferences, Calendar preferences, or Message and Notification preferences. But you probably never changed your Editor preferences right?

That’s OK, because your Moodle site should by default provide you with the ‘best’ editor choice automatically. But if you want to use Markdown, you will need to change this from the default:

So, choose ‘Plain text area’ instead of the default and save changes.

Note that the default will usually be Atto HTML editor. This is the familiar modern Moodle-specific editor with two rows of buttons that you can use to format text.

Now create a Label, and you will notice the Atto editor has disappeared! Now you can choose a format for entering text using the dropdown menu:

Now for your first Markdown !

Simply type the following:

*italic*
**bold**
***bold italic***

Save the page.

Go back to your Editor preferences (via your User menu) and change back to Default (or Atto if you prefer).

Look at your Label again, you should see how your text above has been transformed into formatted text.

Intrigued?  Puzzled?

That’s all for this month, but next time we will delve a little deeper and explain what’s happening here 🙂

• About
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Stuart Mealor

Managing Director at HRDNZ

Stuart is interested in all things e-learning, with specific interests in Moodle, e-learning strategy, and business development.His experience in education over 30 years, MBA in International Business, and knowledge of e-learning systems implementation, together with graphic design background, give him a unique skill set for e-learning projects.

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