✅ Emphasis Styles

Here's how to emphasize text in your writing:

When you want to make a point strongly, use asterisks for bold text. This draws the reader's attention to key concepts or important warnings.

For a gentler emphasis, italic text works well for introducing new terms, book titles like The Art of Computer Programming, or adding subtle stress to a phrase.

Sometimes you need to mark text as underlined to indicate titles or special significance. Underlines appear less frequently in modern writing but remain useful.

To indicate that something has been removed or is no longer valid, use strikethrough. This is handy for todo lists: buy milk done!

✅ Literal Text

When writing about code or technical content, you need text that renders exactly as typed:

Use verbatim for file paths like /usr/local/bin, environment variables like PATH, or any text that should appear in a monospace font without interpretation.

The code markup is similar but semantically indicates program code: print("hello"), variable names like myVariable, or command names like grep.

The difference is subtle—both render similarly, but verbatim suggests literal text while code suggests executable code.

✅ Markup Rules

Markup only works when the delimiters are properly placed:

• The opening delimiter must follow whitespace or punctuation: start of line, space, or characters like (, [, {

• The closing delimiter must precede whitespace or punctuation: end of line, space, period, comma, etc.

• No whitespace immediately inside the delimiters

These work: bold, italic, text with bold inside, (bold in parens)

These don't: * bold * (spaces inside), *bold * (trailing space), word*bold* (no preceding space)

✅ Combining Markup

You can nest markup for combined effects, though keep it readable:

This is bold and italic. Or try underlined italic for something different.

The outer delimiter is processed first, so bold italic has bold as the primary emphasis containing italic text.

✅ Unordered Lists

Start a line with a dash, plus, or asterisk followed by a space:

• First item in the list

• Second item continues the thought

• Third item wraps up

You can also use + or * as bullets (though * can conflict with headlines at the start of a line):

• Alternative bullet style

• Some prefer this look

• It's a matter of taste

✅ Ordered Lists

For sequences where order matters, use numbers followed by a period or parenthesis:

1. First, gather your materials

2. Next, prepare the workspace

3. Then, begin the actual work

4. Finally, clean up when done

The numbers auto-increment conceptually, and you can use letters too:

a. Option A: the simple approach b. Option B: more complex but powerful c. Option C: advanced users only

✅ Nested Lists

Indent items to create hierarchy. Use consistent indentation (typically 2-3 spaces):

• Main topic

  • Subtopic one

    • Detail about subtopic one

    • Another detail

  • Subtopic two

• Another main topic

  • With its own subtopics

You can mix ordered and unordered:

1. First major step

   • Consider this aspect

   • And this one too

2. Second major step

   • More considerations

   • Final thoughts

✅ Definition Lists

When you need to define terms, use the :: separator:

• term :: The word or phrase being defined

• definition :: An explanation of what something means

• org-mode :: A major mode for Emacs that provides outlining, task management, and literate programming

Definition lists are perfect for:

• glossaries :: Collections of term definitions

• parameter docs :: Explaining function arguments

• feature lists :: Describing capabilities with explanations

The term appears before :: and the definition follows. Long definitions wrap naturally to subsequent lines.

✅ Checkboxes

Add checkboxes to list items for task tracking:

• Task not yet started

• Task in progress (partially complete)

• Task completed

Toggle checkboxes with C-c C-c when the cursor is on the line.

Parent items can show progress:

• Project tasks [2/3]

  • Design the interface

  • Implement the backend

  • Write documentation

The [1/3] updates automatically as you check off subtasks. You can also use percentage format [33%].

You can use an attribute to create radio button style checkboxes where only one item can be selected:

• Option A

• Option B

• Option C

✅ Preserving Line Breaks

Normally, single line breaks within a paragraph are treated as spaces when exported. To force a line break, end the line with \\:

Or use verse blocks for poetry and formatted text:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Org-mode is lovely,
And so are you.

✅ Inline Math

For mathematics within a sentence, use $...$ or \(...\):

The famous equation \(E = mc^2\) changed physics forever. Einstein showed that energy and mass are equivalent, with the speed of light \(c\) as the conversion factor.

In statistics, the mean \(\mu = \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n} x_i\) summarizes a dataset. The standard deviation \(\sigma\) measures spread around that mean.

The quadratic formula \(x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}\) solves any quadratic equation.

✅ Display Math

For equations that deserve their own line, use $$...$$ or \[...\]:

The Gaussian integral is remarkably elegant:

\[\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-x^2} dx = \sqrt{\pi}\]

Maxwell's equations in differential form:

\[\nabla \cdot \mathbf{E} = \frac{\rho}{\epsilon_0}\]

\[\nabla \cdot \mathbf{B} = 0\]

✅ Equation Environments

For numbered equations or aligned systems, use LaTeX environments:

Or for aligned equations:

✅ Math Preview

In Scimax VS Code, hover over math expressions to see a rendered preview. See LaTeX Preview for full details.

✅ Inline Footnotes

For quick notes, use inline footnotes that combine reference and definition:

The algorithm runs in O(n log n) time^[1], making it practical for large datasets.

✅ Named Footnotes

Use descriptive names for footnotes you reference multiple times:

As noted in the original paper^[smith2020], the results were reproducible^[smith2020].

✅ Quote Blocks

For quotations:

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

— Steve Jobs

✅ Example Blocks

For preformatted text that should render literally:

This text appears exactly as typed.
  Indentation is preserved.
    *Markup* is not processed.

✅ Center Blocks

For centered text:

✅ Source Blocks

For code with syntax highlighting (covered in detail in Source Blocks):

def hello(name):
    """Greet someone by name."""
    return f"Hello, {name}!"

✅ Comment Blocks

For content that should not appear in exports:

✅ Entities

Org-mode supports named entities for special characters:

• \alpha → α, \beta → β, \gamma → γ (Greek letters)

• \rarr → →, \larr → ←, \harr → ↔ (arrows)

• \deg → °, \pm → ±, \times → × (symbols)

• \copy → ©, \reg → ®, \trade → ™ (legal)

VS Code does not render the entities like Emacs does.

✅ Escaping Markup

To show literal markup characters without triggering formatting:

• Use a zero-width space (not practical)

• Use verbatim or code markup: the asterisk * creates bold

• Use an example block for longer passages

In source blocks and example blocks, all markup is automatically literal.