Anilist-Flavored Markdown
New Anlist users often have questions about how to format text use links and so forth. This guide attempts to document just about everything you could ever need to know so that all of these tips and tricks are explained in one place.
Feel free to suggest changes or to share/modify this guide as you wish.
PART 1: BASICS
Formatting is based on Markdownhttps://commonmark.org/help/ though with a few Anilistspecific quirks such as spoilers or Youtube video embeds. For this reason Ive referred to it as AnilistFlavored Markdown in this guide like the GitHub Flavored Markdownhttps://github.github.com/gfm/ used by GitHub or Reddit Flavored Markdownhttps://www.reddit.com/wiki/markdown at Reddit.
newlines
Unlike the Original Markdownhttps://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ newlines just work without any messing around. For example this text:
Hello
world
...will appear as two separate lines like youd expect whereas it ought to appear as Hello world on a single line according to original Markdown.
italic text
Put one or character either side of the text:
+ hello becomes hello
+ world becomes world
You can also use the HTML ... or ... tags:
+ hello becomes hello
+ hello becomes hello
Note that there is currently a bug where doesnt work with less than three characters so 1 or 12 wont work but 123 will.
bold text
Put two or characters either side of the text:
+ hello becomes hello
+ world becomes world
You can also use the HTML ... or ... tags:
+ hello becomes hello
+ hello becomes hello
This can be combined with italics like so: hello world
strikethrough text
Put two characters either side of the text:
+ hello becomes hello
You can also use the HTML ... or ... tags:
+ hello becomes hello
+ hello becomes hello
Again this can be combined with bold or italic text: hello world
alignment
To centeralign text surround it with either tildetildetilde...tildetildetilde or ...:
hello world
For centred rightaligned or justified text add align=??? to the HTML ... or ... tags:
This is kind of pointless...
This is equivalent to the other methods.
This aligns the text to the right.
This gives you nonragged paragraphs of text.
Note that these all rely on HTML4 features and so may stop working one day...
quoted text
Begin each line with a character or use ...:
hello
world
hello
world
...becomes:
helloworld
You can nest quotes by adding extra characters like so:
hello
world
...becomes:
hello
world
Note that quoted text will always appear italic due to Anilist styling.
links
Link to other pages using the text you seehttps://anilist.co/. This will open in a new tab when clicked.
You can also use the text you see HTML but this will not open in a new tab unless you add target=blank possibly a bug may change in the future.
Simple links will just work and may optionally be surrounded with lt and gt like so:
https://www.google.com
As a special case links to anime/manga pages on Anilist will show a preview:
https://anilist.co/anime/66/AzumangaDaioh/
https://anilist.co/manga/30085/AzumangaDaioh/
https://anilist.co/anime/66/AzumangaDaioh/
https://anilist.co/manga/30085/AzumangaDaioh/
images
Images look like links but with a in front:
fallback texthttps://anilist.co//icons/icon.svg
You can also use HTML:
Theres also an Anilistspecific way to specify a size:
https://anilist.co//icons/icon.svg
...where is the width in pixels such as 420.
Note that the code is always converted even within code blocks so be careful when trying to explain how it works to other users
text size
Create a header by starting the line with 15 characters:
Bigger
Normal
Smaller
Smaller still
Even smaller
Result:
Bigger
Normal
Smaller
Smaller still
Even smaller
You can also use the HTML //// tags but Anilist doesnt allow the tag so this or this wont work.
Alternatively you can use == or instead of text or text:
Hello
==
World
Use as many = or characters as you like but there must be at least two.
horizontal lines
Enter three or more or characters optionally with spaces:
Make sure to have a blank line either side to avoid ambiguity:
this is a header
this is text followed by a horizontal line
Alternatively you can use the HTML tag.
lists
For bulletpoint lists simply start each line with or +:
hello
world
hello
world
+ hello
+ world
All of these become:
+ hello
+ world
For numbered lists simply begin each line with 1. 2. etc.
1. hello
2. world
This becomes:
1. hello
2. world
Note that you dont actually have to use sequential numbers. For example:
6. ALL
6. HAIL
6. SATAN
...becomes:
6. ALL
6. HAIL
6. SATAN
For sublists simply indent each point by two spaces:
+ hello
+ world
+ hello
+ world
You can also mixandmatch numbered and bulleted lists:
hello
1. world
+ hello
+ world
2. hello
world
Alternatively you could use the HTML // tags instead.
code
For inline code use backticks:
blah blah markdown does
not work here blah blah
If you use the HTML ... tag you can use Markdown in your code so it essentially acts as a monospacedtext effect:
blah blah markdown works
fine here blah blah
For blocks of code simply prefix each line with four spaces:
normal markdown text
somecode markdownwontworkhere
more normal text
... or surround it with triplebackticks:
normal markdown text
somecode markdownwontworkhere
more normal text
You can also use the HTML ... tag:
normal markdown text
somecode markdownwontworkhere
more normal text
PART 2: ANLISTSPECIFIC FEATURES
Most of the things above will work on any Markdown website but this section covers things that are specific to Anilist.
Note that most or all of these will always be converted even if theyre put inside code blocks
spoiler text
Surround text you want to hide with excl...excl like so:
Using some spoiler text also works for now but this might not be the case in the future stick with the Markdown approach
Note that the spoiler text feature has a few bugs at the moment:
+ excl...excl is converted even in code blocks so it can be difficult to explain how it works to other users.
+ It doesnt interact well with tildetildetilde...tildetildetilde or ... it puts the hidden text after the Spoiler click to view block.
Hopefully these will be fixed in the future but for now be careful to avoid unintentionally revealing spoilers to other users
videos
Surround the URL with lpar...rpar like so:
lparhttps://www..com/watch?v=D0q0QeQbw9Urpar
Note that only the D0q0QeQbw9U part is actually required:
D0q0QeQbw9U
Again this is always converted even in code blocks.
other videos
Surround the URL with lpar...rpar like so:
lparhttps://files.kiniro.uk/video/sonic.rpar
These embeds will play and loop automatically and are muted by default:
https://files.kiniro.uk/video/sonic.
Note that despite the name any audio or video file will work but may not actually be supported by all browsers.
PS: Does not interact well with code blocks.
PART 3: EMOJI AND UNICODE
This section covers a few things to be aware of if you want to post emojis or other nonASCII characters on Anilist.
tldr
Run everything through thishttps://files.kiniro.uk/unicodifier.html before you post on Anilist and you should be fine.
longer version
Any Unicode character whose code point is more than 65535 FFFF hexadecimal will cause the rest of your post to be cut off and disappear because well MySQLhttps://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/charsetunicodeutf8mb3.html. Unfortunately this includes almost all emojis plus various other unusual Unicode characters.
Using HTML magichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/characterentityreferences you can manually include these characters like so:
129300 = 129300 decimal or x1f914 hexadecimal
The Unicodifierhttps://files.kiniro.uk/unicodifier.html does this for you converting any codepoints over 65535 into this format so that they wont cause problems when you post them on the Anilist website.
PART 4: MISCELLANEOUS
This section covers a few odds and ends which sometimes get asked about on the global feed.
linked images
To have an image take you somewhere when you click on it simply wrap it in an ordinary Markdown link:
https://anilist.co//icons/icon.svg https://anilist.co/
Note that the spaces around the code are necessary in order for it to be converted properly. However this isnt the case with basic Markdown images:
imagehttps://anilist.co//icons/icon.svghttps://anilist.co/
colored text
A few people have colored nonlink text on their profile pages. This is done via a HTML link that doesnt specify a URL: blah hello world blah
120200120212120212120209 120165120150120169120165 119995119995119992120009120008
You can change the fontstyling of your text through the magic of Unicode. See for examples but remember to run everything through the Unicodifierhttps://files.kiniro.uk/unicodifier.html before you post it
insecure images
Embedded images are automatically converted to https:// if they start with a plain http:// prefix.
If you embed an image in a post and it doesnt seem to appear check that its coming from a website that supports secure HTTPS URLs.
displaying special characters normally
If you want to use an asterisk/underscore/etc. without it being used to format your text simply prefix it with a backslash:
+ hello world becomes hello world
+ hello world becomes hello world
Use two backslashes to get a single backslash.
Alternatively use HTML characterentity references like amp or lpar instead of or to get literal characters.
underlined text
Not possible as far as Im aware the ... HTML tag is currently not allowed by Anilist.