Formatting Action Item Descriptions with Markdown

This article will cover how Admins can use Markdown to customize the formatting of their Action Item descriptions. We break down how to add links or line breaks, format words as bold or italic, and create lists.

Markdown is an easy-to-write computer language that will allow you to create formatted text within your Action Item Descriptions in Rally.

You may want to format your Action Item descriptions to make them easier to read or understand, to emphasize important aspects of your description, or if you want to provide a link to external resources for your Mobilizers to use or share with their Contacts.

Note: If you want a link to be clickable, you MUST format it using Markdown.

Links

A link is created by enclosing the text you want to show in square brackets [Link text] and following it immediately with the URL in parentheses (https://example.com).

Line Breaks

Line breaks can be added the way you normally would – by adding two subsequent newlines (press “return” twice) in your text.

Bold and Italics

To bold text, surround the text you want bolded with two asterisks ( ** ) on each side.

To italicize text, you can either surround your text with a single underscore ( _ ) or a single asterisk (*). You cannot combine both to italicize a single piece of text. 

Note: if you want to italicize a portion of a word, you must use asterisks.

Creating Lists

To create a bulleted list, start on a new line for each item in the list, and at the start of the line, type a dash ( - ), asterisk ( * ), or plus sign ( + ).

Numbered lists can be created similarly by starting each new line with a number followed by a period. It is not required for all the numbers to be in sequential order, but the first item should begin with “1.”