docs/interpreter/markdown.md

---
layout: page
title: "Markdown Interpreter for Apache Zeppelin"
description: "Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can be converted to HTML. Apache Zeppelin uses markdown4j."
group: interpreter
---
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{% include JB/setup %}

# Markdown Interpreter for Apache Zeppelin

<div id="toc"></div>

## Overview
[Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) is a plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can be converted to HTML.
Apache Zeppelin uses [flexmark](https://github.com/vsch/flexmark-java) and [markdown4j](https://github.com/jdcasey/markdown4j) as markdown parsers.

In Zeppelin notebook, you can use ` %md ` in the beginning of a paragraph to invoke the Markdown interpreter and generate static html from Markdown plain text.

In Zeppelin, Markdown interpreter is enabled by default and uses the [flexmark](https://github.com/vsch/flexmark-java) parser.

<img src="{{BASE_PATH}}/assets/themes/zeppelin/img/docs-img/markdown-interpreter-setting.png" width="60%" />

## Example

The following example demonstrates the basic usage of Markdown in a Zeppelin notebook.

<img src="{{BASE_PATH}}/assets/themes/zeppelin/img/docs-img/markdown-example.png" width="70%" />

## Mathematical expression

Markdown interpreter leverages %html display system internally. That means you can mix mathematical expressions with markdown syntax. 
For more information, please see [Mathematical Expression](../usage/display_system/basic.html#mathematical-expressions) section.

## Configuration
<table class="table-configuration">
  <tr>
    <th>Name</th>
    <th>Default Value</th>
    <th>Description</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>markdown.parser.type</td>
    <td>flexmark</td>
    <td>Markdown Parser Type. <br/> Available values: flexmark, markdown4j.</td>
  </tr>
</table>

### Flexmark parser (Default Markdown Parser)

CommonMark/Markdown Java parser with source level AST.

<img src="{{BASE_PATH}}/assets/themes/zeppelin/img/docs-img/markdown-example-flexmark-parser.png" width="70%" />

`flexmark` parser provides [YUML](http://yuml.me/) and [Websequence](https://www.websequencediagrams.com/) extensions also.

<img src="{{BASE_PATH}}/assets/themes/zeppelin/img/docs-img/markdown-example-flexmark-parser-extensions.png" width="70%" />

### Markdown4j Parser

Since `flexmark` parser is more accurate and provides much more markdown syntax `markdown4j` option might be removed later. But keep this parser for the backward compatibility.