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## Syntax

The kramdown syntax is based on Markdown, a very easy to write, easy to read markup for writing HTML
documents in plain text. Since the basic Markdown syntax has some shortcomings, implementations
(especially the [PHP Markdown Extra] package) have tried to overcome this shortcomings with
additional syntax. kramdown supports all features of the original Markdown syntax (albeit with some
minor corrections) as well as newer features implemented in the [PHP Markdown Extra] package and
[Maruku].

For a complete description of the implemented syntax, have a look at the [Syntax page]({relocatable:
syntax.html}).


## Usage

The kramdown package provides two ways for using it:

* **As a library**

  kramdown uses basically the same API as [RedCloth], [BlueCloth] and [Maruku]:

      require 'kramdown'

      Kramdown::Document.new(text).to_html

  The second parameter to the `new` call is an options hash for (de)activating certain features. For
  more information have a look at the [API documentation]({relocatable: rdoc/index.html}).

* **As an application**

  Together with the library files a binary called `kramdown` is shipped which can be used to convert
  text in kramdown syntax to HTML. It either reads from the files specified as the command line
  arguments or from the standard input. For example:

      kramdown path/to/kramdown/doc/syntax.page


## Tests

kramdown uses various test suites to verify the correct working of the parser and the HTML
converter. For more information, have a look at the [tests document](tests.html).


## Bugs, Forums, Mailing Lists

If you have found a bug, you should [report it here][bug_report]. Also, there are [forums][forum]
and [mailing lists][ml] available if you have any questions!

[bug_report]: http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?atid=28673&group_id=7403&func=browse
[forum]: http://rubyforge.org/forum/?group_id=7403
[ml]: http://rubyforge.org/mail/?group_id=7403


## Author

* Thomas Leitner
* e-Mail: <t_leitner@gmx.at>
* GPG Key-Id: 0xB2D0A854


[PHP Markdown Extra]: http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/
[Maruku]:             http://maruku.rubyforge.org
[RedCloth]: http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/redcloth/
[BlueCloth]: http://www.deveiate.org/projects/BlueCloth


--- name:intro

## Welcome to the kramdown site

kramdown is a *free* GPL-licensed [Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org) library for parsing Markdown-like
syntax. It is completely written in Ruby, supports standard Markdown (with some minor modifications)
and various extensions that have been made popular by the [PHP Markdown Extra] package and [Maruku].

It is probably the fastest pure-Ruby Markdown converter available (November 2009), being 5x faster
than [Maruku] and about 10x faster than [BlueFeather].

<div class="a-center">
The latest version of kramdown is <b>0.1.0</b> and it was released on <b>2009-11-21</b>.
</div>

[PHP Markdown Extra]: http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/
[Maruku]: http://maruku.rubyforge.org
[BlueFeather]: http://ruby.morphball.net/bluefeather/index_en.html