Guide to the LessWrong Editor

Reminder to self: they are no longer in beta, remove that message
The footnote icon is the [*] on the right.
  • You can use #, ##, ### at the beginning of a line to insert Heading Level 1, 2, 3
  • > at the beginning of a paragraph makes it a quote block
  • >! makes for a spoiler tag on a paragraph
  • Three dashes will insert a newline
  • Adding \~\~~~ before and after text (\(~~\~text\~\text~~) will make it crossed.
Reminder to self: they are no longer in beta, remove that message
The footnote icon is the [*] on the right.
  • You can use #, ##, ### at the beginning of a line to insert Heading Level 1, 2, 3
  • > at the beginning of a paragraph makes it a quote block
  • >! makes for a spoiler tag on a paragraph
  • Three dashes will insert a newline
  • Adding \~\~ before and after text (\~\~text\~\~) will make it crossed.

To add a spoiler block using the Markdown editor, type “:::spoiler at the beginning of and ":::" at the end of the text you want to hide. 

To add a spoiler block using the Markdown editor, type “:::spoiler>! at the beginning of every paragraph thatand ":::" at the end of the text you want to hide. (This works similarly to the way block quotes work in Markdown, which is just starting lines with “>”.) (More.)

>!:::spoiler This text would be covered by a spoiler block. :::

I changed the section on spoiler blocks to reflect the actual behavior of the editor. One might also consider changing this paragraph, as the “markdown syntax” for spoiler tags is not supported in this markdown (or fixing the bug itself).

The LW Docs editor actually supports a bunch of markdown syntax!

  • You can use #, ##, ### at the beginning of a line to insert Heading Level 1, 2, 3
  • > at the beginning of a paragraph makes it a quote block 
  • >! makes for a spoiler tag on a paragraph 
  • Three dashes will insert a newline
Ruby30

It will be the publish date of the republishing.

This guide is implemented as a wiki-tag so that anyone can improve it. If you make a significant change, please note this in the wiki-tag discussion page.
 

To link to internal headers in a LessWrong post, savecopy and paste the post as a draft (without those links). Then open it in a second tab, and start "editing" inlinks (right-click, "Copy Link Address") from the other tab. ClickTable of Contents that renders on the relevant header in the saved draft version, copy the resulting URL, and paste that wherever you wantside (it can take a few moments to add a link to that header.appear or update). 

LessWrong's editor is a sophisticated, sophisticated, capablebeast suited for the contemporarymodern forum-goer,goer[1], but it's not completely self-explanatory.  This handy "how-to" aims to answer all the questions you might have about using the editor. 

For anything we missed, feel free to comment on this wiki-tag's discussion page, below or contact us.

You can switch to/from using Markdown by checking/unchecking "Activate Markdown Editor" in your profile settingsuser account (under "Site Customizations").

In general, Markdown is supported primarily for use-cases like "importing posts from elsewhere", and some features you see used in other LessWrong posts may not be supported in Markdown, such as various third-party content embeddings.embeddings and live collaborative editing.

 

If you have 1 or more1+  karma, or have been reviewed by a moderator, you can add co-authors to your post in the post settings section (at the bottom of the post edit page). If you don't yet have 1 karma, send us a message on Intercom (bottom right of all pages, unless you've hidden it in your account settings, or are on mobile) to request an account review.

Co-authors are purely for display and karma attribution purposes; to do collaborative writing or editing you must separately enable sharing: see the next section.

Like adding co-authors, this feature requires either 1 or more1+ karma, or having an account that's been reviewed by a moderator. If you don't yet have 1 karma, send us a message on Intercom (bottom right of all pages, unless you've hidden it in your account settings, or are on mobile) to request an account review.

This will bring up a modal dialog where you can customize your sharing settings.

Reminder to self: they are no longer in beta, remove that message

To suggest edits on post that's been shared with you, highlight some text and click on the "Track Changes" button.Track changes/suggest edits requires edit permissions (commenting is not enough)[2].

LaTeX

If using the LW Docs editor, press Cmd-4 for inline and Cmd-M for block-level. (Ctrl on Windows).

If using Markdown, surround your LaTeX text with $, for example:

$<LaTeX text>$

We currently use MathJax v3.1.2; please see the documentation if you have questions about whether specific LaTeX features are supported.

Note that there can be issues in LaTeX when converting between editor types. Make a backup before changing the editor if you have LaTeX code.

Things you can insert into your writingFormatting

LaTeX

If using the LW Docs editor, press Cmd-4 for inline and Cmd-M for block-level. (Ctrl on Windows).

If using Markdown, surround your LaTeX text with $, for example:

$<LaTeX text>$

We currently use MathJax v3.1.2; please see their documentation if you have questions about whether specific LaTeX features are supported.

Quick links to posts

You can use "#" symbols to link to a post when using the WYSIWYG editor.  After you type the symbol, followed by some...

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If I make a post then revert to draft then republish, what is the publish date?

3Ruby
It will be the publish date of the republishing.

<<<Under construction>>>

 

This guide is implemented as a wiki-tag so that anyone can improve it. If you make a significant change, please note this in the wiki-tag discussion page.

LessWrong's editor is a sophisticated, capable beast suited for the modern forum-goer, but not all of its features are immediately apparent. This handy "how-to" aims to answer all the questions you might have about using the editor. For anything we missed, feel free to comment below or contact us. 

 

LessWrong's editor is a sophisticated, capable beast suited for the modern forum-goer, but it's not completely self-explanatory.  This handy "how-to" aims to answer all the questions you might have about using the editor. 

For anything we missed, feel free to comment on this wiki-tag's discussion page, below or contact us.

 

This guide is implemented as a wiki-tag so that anyone can improve it. If you make a significant change, please note this in the talkwiki-tag discussion page.  Thanks to the EA Forum team for writing big parts of this.

LessWrong's editor is a sophisticated, capable beast suited for the modern forum-goer, but not all of its features are immediately apparent. This handy "how-to" aims to answer all the questions you might have about using the editor. For anything we missed, feel free to comment below or contact us.

The five editor things you most likely wish you knew

 

The Full Guide

 

 

 

 

WARNING ABOUT CONVERSIONWARNING: Converting documents between editor types is lossy

Sharing / Collaborative Editing

How do I add multiple authors to a post?

If you have 1 or more karma, or have been reviewed by a moderator, you can add co-authors to your post in the post settings section (at the bottom of the post edit page). If you don't yet have 1 karma, send us a message on Intercom (bottom right of all pages, unless you've hidden it in your account settings, or are on mobile) to request an account review.

Co-authors are purely for display and karma attribution purposes; to do collaborative writing or editing see the next section.

How do I share my draft with others?

Like adding co-authors, this feature requires either 1 or more karma, or having an account that's been reviewed by a moderator. If you don't yet have 1 karma, send us a message on Intercom (bottom right of all pages, unless you've hidden it in your account settings, or are on mobile) to request an account review.

To share your draft with others so that they can read, comment on, or edit your post, click on the "Sharing Settings" icon at the top of the post editor.  You need to have given your post a title and some content before doing so.

This will bring up a modal where you can customize your sharing settings.

If you want to share your post with someone who doesn't have a LessWrong account, you need to enable the "Anyone...

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This guide is implemented as a wiki-tag so that anyone can improve it. If you make a significant change, please note this in the talk page.  Thanks to the EA Forum team for writing big parts of this.

LessWrong's editor is a sophisticated, capable beast suited for the modern forum-goer, but not all of its features are immediately apparent. This handy "how-to" aims to answer all the questions you might have about using the editor. For anything we missed, feel free to comment below or contact us.

This guide is implemented as a wiki-tag so that anyone can improve it. If you make a significant change, please note this in the talk page.

LessWrong's editor is a sophisticated, capable beast suited for the modern forum-goer, but not all of its features are immediately apparent. This handy "how-to" aims to answer all the questions you might have about using the editor. For anything we missed, feel free to comment below or contact us.

Two editors: WYSIWYG and Markdown

LessWrong currently offers two ways to create and format posts (as well as comments, tags, and direct messages). 

Our default editor ("LessWrong Docs") is a customized version of the CKEditor library. It offers a user-friendly "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) interface and is generally the most intuitive way to format posts. It offers support for image uploading, code blocks, LaTeX, tables, footnotes, and many other options. You can also directly copy-paste from Google Docs and preserve most formatting (except links to internal headers — see below), including header font sizing, hyperlinks, images — and, most recently footnotes, although you'll need to use a workaround! 

We also offer a Markdown editor. If you want to use Markdown, here is a guide that discusses Markdown syntax, and we generally recommend using this Google Docs add-on to convert your Google Docs drafts (formatted as you like) into Markdown syntax.

Switching Editor Types

You can switch to/from using Markdown by checking/unchecking "Activate Markdown Editor" in your profile settings (under "Site Customizations").

When it is activated, new posts (and comments, etc) will by default use Markdown editor. You will also see a dropdown for the editor type when editing posts:

Converting posts from one editor type to another

To convert a post from one editor type to another, you need to have the Markdown editor activated.  The editor type dropdown is only visible when using the Markdown editor.  It will display the editor type for that post.  For example, if you initially wrote a draft using the WYSIWYG editor, and then changed your account settings to use Markdown by default, when you go back to edit that same draft, the downdown will say "LessWrong Docs".

Click on it and select the desired editor type, and your post will be converted to that editor type.

WARNING ABOUT CONVERSION

In general,...

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Created by Ruby at