What are the main use cases for using the markdown package?

[jeromyanglim]

see also http://stackoverflow.com/a/10969107/180892

library(markdown)

To see options

code fragment

markdownToHTML('test.md', 'test.html', options='fragment_only')

or see the fragment.only option.

This is useful when incorporating HTML into a blog post and some forums.

Use external figures rather than base 64 images

Base 64 is convenient in that everything is contained in one file.

However, base 64 images should be avoided when:

• converting the HTML document into another format using pandoc or importing into a word processor
• posting to a website: base64 images don't always display in RSS feeds. I have also read that some browsers have trouble with base64 images.

Disable hard wrap

I'm used to LaTeX and standard markdown where a single new line character has no effect on formatting. Thus, disabling the default option of 'hard_wrap' prevents this behaviour.