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Plain Text > Textile Parser > HTML

I write a lot of HTML by hand. Have done for years. But when I started this blog, I knew I’d stay a lot saner using a tool such as Markdown, Textile or reStructuredText to generate the final markup for me. I know most people use Markdown but as a contrarian, I chose Textile. I’ve found that Textile gets the balance between ease-of-use and power just right.

Let’s dive right in and have a look at how you write textile documents.

The Basics

Headings

Headings are simply h1. to h4. followed by your heading (all on the same line):

h1. This is my heading

will produce

This is my heading

h4. This is my tiny heading

This is my tiny heading

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are blocks of plain text separated by two newlines. You just type as you would in a text editor. The Textile parser will wrap your paragraphs in <p> tags.

Text formatting

Underscores are used to _emphasise_ text. Bold text needs an *asterisk* on either side of what you want to be bold. If you want emphasised, bold text, just use both _*together*_:

really important you understand this. Easy.

Lists

Unordered (bullet) lists use asterisks as well. If you need sublists, add asterisks for each sub-level:

Here is my shopping list
* Milk
* Bread
* Ingredients for cake:
** Eggs
** Chocolate
** Sugar

Personally, I think that is very easy to remember and use. This will output:

Here is my shopping list

  • Milk
  • Bread
  • Ingredients for cake:
    • Eggs
    • Chocolate
    • Sugar

Ordered (numbered) lists use the hash character # for each list item:

How to make a cuppa
# Get a cup
## Place teabag and sugar (if desired) into cup
# Boil a kettle
# When boiled add water to cup
# etc.

Which renders to:

How to make a cuppa

  1. Get a cup
    1. Place teabag and sugar (if desired) into cup
  2. Boil a kettle
  3. When boiled add water to cup
  4. etc.

The Textile parser will keep track of numbering for you.

Links

here is a link to my "website":https://simonh.uk

here is a link to my website

Link text in double quotes, immediately followed by a colon, then the URL

Additional Textile Features

This is where Textile beats the competition (in my opinion). 

p>. This text is right aligned.
p=. This text is centred.
p<. Back to left aligned (the default).

Which produces:

This text is right aligned.

This text is centred.

Back to left aligned (the default).

Tables

Example below copied from the Textile website.

| A | simple | table | row |
| And | another | table | row |
| With an | | empty | cell |

| A | simple | table | row |
| And | another | table | row |
| With an | | empty | cell |

There’s a lot more you can do with tables. Consult the Textile documentation for more info.

Footnotes

This line of text has a footnote[1]

This line of text has a footnote1

At the bottom of your Textile document, you simply write

fn1. This is the footnote text.

Increment the footnote for each one you created in the document

fn2. Here's the second one.

Easily Reference CSS Classes and Styles

I love this one and use it throughout my blog and in other projects. Textile allows you to do this:

p(some-class). Here is my text

which will apply whatever you’ve defined for some-class. Below is what I use to put icons before headings and paragraphs (in paper.css):

.info::before {
  content: url('/img/info.svg');
  width: 18px;
  vertical-align: middle;
  margin-right: 10px;
  display: inline-block;
}

By simply putting this into my textile template:

p(info). This paragraph now has an icon placed on the left. Useful for letting a reader know something!

that will be rendered to:

This paragraph now has an icon placed on the left. Useful for letting a reader know something!

Textile also helpfully lets you apply inline styles.

Do you like the color %{color:yellow;}yellow%?

produces this:

Do you like the color yellow?

I don’t use the inline styling very much at all. But if I / you need to, Textile has you covered.

Conclusion

Dean Allen, the guy who created Textile for a CMS he was writing explained why he created the format (from Wikipedia):

Textile was developed by Dean Allen in 2002, which he billed as “a humane web text generator” that enabled you to “simply write”.

I think he did a great job.

Footnotes

1 I told you there was a footnote down here!

Updates

2025-01-08: Add Easily Reference CSS Classes and Styles section.