Markdown uses email conventions for quoting blocks of text. A block
quotation is one or more paragraphs or other block elements (such as
lists or headings), with each line preceded by a >
character and an optional space. (The >
need not start
at the left margin, but it should not be indented more than three
spaces.)
> This is a block quote. This
> paragraph has two lines.
>
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
> 2. Second item.
A “lazy” form, which requires the >
character only on
the first line of each block, is also allowed:
> This is a block quote. This
paragraph has two lines.
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
2. Second item.
Among the block elements that can be contained in a block quote are other block quotes. That is, block quotes can be nested:
> This is a block quote.
>
> > A block quote within a block quote.
If the >
character is followed by an optional space,
that space will be considered part of the block quote marker and not
part of the indentation of the contents. Thus, to put an indented code
block in a block quote, you need five spaces after the
>
:
> code
blank_before_blockquote
Original Markdown syntax does not require a blank line before a block
quote. Pandoc does require this (except, of course, at the beginning of
the document). The reason for the requirement is that it is all too easy
for a >
to end up at the beginning of a line by accident
(perhaps through line wrapping). So, unless the
markdown_strict
format is used, the following does not
produce a nested block quote in pandoc:
> This is a block quote.
>> Not nested, since `blank_before_blockquote` is enabled by default