8.7 Lists

8.7.1 Bullet lists

A bullet list is a list of bulleted list items. A bulleted list item begins with a bullet (*, +, or -). Here is a simple example:

* one
* two
* three

This will produce a “compact” list. If you want a “loose” list, in which each item is formatted as a paragraph, put spaces between the items:

* one

* two

* three

The bullets need not be flush with the left margin; they may be indented one, two, or three spaces. The bullet must be followed by whitespace.

List items look best if subsequent lines are flush with the first line (after the bullet):

* here is my first
  list item.
* and my second.

But Markdown also allows a “lazy” format:

* here is my first
list item.
* and my second.

8.7.2 Block content in list items

A list item may contain multiple paragraphs and other block-level content. However, subsequent paragraphs must be preceded by a blank line and indented to line up with the first non-space content after the list marker.

  * First paragraph.

    Continued.

  * Second paragraph. With a code block, which must be indented
    eight spaces:

        { code }

Exception: if the list marker is followed by an indented code block, which must begin 5 spaces after the list marker, then subsequent paragraphs must begin two columns after the last character of the list marker:

*     code

  continuation paragraph

List items may include other lists. In this case the preceding blank line is optional. The nested list must be indented to line up with the first non-space character after the list marker of the containing list item.

* fruits
  + apples
    - macintosh
    - red delicious
  + pears
  + peaches
* vegetables
  + broccoli
  + chard

As noted above, Markdown allows you to write list items “lazily,” instead of indenting continuation lines. However, if there are multiple paragraphs or other blocks in a list item, the first line of each must be indented.

+ A lazy, lazy, list
item.

+ Another one; this looks
bad but is legal.

    Second paragraph of second
list item.

8.7.3 Ordered lists

Ordered lists work just like bulleted lists, except that the items begin with enumerators rather than bullets.

In original Markdown, enumerators are decimal numbers followed by a period and a space. The numbers themselves are ignored, so there is no difference between this list:

1.  one
2.  two
3.  three

and this one:

5.  one
7.  two
1.  three

8.7.3.1 Extension: fancy_lists

Unlike original Markdown, pandoc allows ordered list items to be marked with uppercase and lowercase letters and roman numerals, in addition to Arabic numerals. List markers may be enclosed in parentheses or followed by a single right-parenthesis or period. They must be separated from the text that follows by at least one space, and, if the list marker is a capital letter with a period, by at least two spaces.¹

The fancy_lists extension also allows ‘#’ to be used as an ordered list marker in place of a numeral:

#. one
#. two

8.7.3.2 Extension: startnum

Pandoc also pays attention to the type of list marker used, and to the starting number, and both of these are preserved where possible in the output format. Thus, the following yields a list with numbers followed by a single parenthesis, starting with 9, and a sublist with lowercase roman numerals:

 9)  Ninth
10)  Tenth
11)  Eleventh
       i. subone
      ii. subtwo
     iii. subthree

Pandoc will start a new list each time a different type of list marker is used. So, the following will create three lists:

(2) Two
(5) Three
1.  Four
*   Five

If default list markers are desired, use #.:

#.  one
#.  two
#.  three

8.7.3.3 Extension: task_lists

Pandoc supports task lists, using the syntax of GitHub-Flavored Markdown.

- [ ] an unchecked task list item
- [x] checked item

8.7.4 Definition lists

8.7.4.1 Extension: definition_lists

Pandoc supports definition lists, using the syntax of PHP Markdown Extra with some extensions.²

Term 1

:   Definition 1

Term 2 with *inline markup*

:   Definition 2

        { some code, part of Definition 2 }

    Third paragraph of definition 2.

Each term must fit on one line, which may optionally be followed by a blank line, and must be followed by one or more definitions. A definition begins with a colon or tilde, which may be indented one or two spaces.

A term may have multiple definitions, and each definition may consist of one or more block elements (paragraph, code block, list, etc.), each indented four spaces or one tab stop. The body of the definition (not including the first line) should be indented four spaces. However, as with other Markdown lists, you can “lazily” omit indentation except at the beginning of a paragraph or other block element:

Term 1

:   Definition
with lazy continuation.

    Second paragraph of the definition.

If you leave space before the definition (as in the example above), the text of the definition will be treated as a paragraph. In some output formats, this will mean greater spacing between term/definition pairs. For a more compact definition list, omit the space before the definition:

Term 1
  ~ Definition 1

Term 2
  ~ Definition 2a
  ~ Definition 2b

Note that space between items in a definition list is required. (A variant that loosens this requirement, but disallows “lazy” hard wrapping, can be activated with compact_definition_lists: see Non-default extensions, below.)

8.7.5 Numbered example lists

8.7.5.1 Extension: example_lists

The special list marker @ can be used for sequentially numbered examples. The first list item with a @ marker will be numbered ‘1’, the next ‘2’, and so on, throughout the document. The numbered examples need not occur in a single list; each new list using @ will take up where the last stopped. So, for example:

(@)  My first example will be numbered (1).
(@)  My second example will be numbered (2).

Explanation of examples.

(@)  My third example will be numbered (3).

Numbered examples can be labeled and referred to elsewhere in the document:

(@good)  This is a good example.

As (@good) illustrates, ...

The label can be any string of alphanumeric characters, underscores, or hyphens.

Note: continuation paragraphs in example lists must always be indented four spaces, regardless of the length of the list marker. That is, example lists always behave as if the four_space_rule extension is set. This is because example labels tend to be long, and indenting content to the first non-space character after the label would be awkward.

8.7.6 Ending a list

What if you want to put an indented code block after a list?

-   item one
-   item two

    { my code block }

Trouble! Here pandoc (like other Markdown implementations) will treat { my code block } as the second paragraph of item two, and not as a code block.

To “cut off” the list after item two, you can insert some non-indented content, like an HTML comment, which won’t produce visible output in any format:

-   item one
-   item two

<!-- end of list -->

    { my code block }

You can use the same trick if you want two consecutive lists instead of one big list:

1.  one
2.  two
3.  three

<!-- -->

1.  uno
2.  dos
3.  tres