Get a cue to inspire and spark creativity in your writing, then link your responses to other bloggers’ responses in the WordPress.com Reader.
When you use the Writing Prompt block, your post will be tagged accordingly and automatically shared with other people who use WordPress.com. You can opt out of this automatic tagging and sharing by removing the Writing Prompt tags.
Requirements
The Writing Prompt block is part of the Jetpack Blocks suite. See our Jetpack Blocks article to learn about the available blocks and how to activate them.
Jetpack Blocks require the Block Editor (also referred to as the Gutenberg editor). If you’ve installed the Classic Editor plugin, you have a few options:
- Deactivate the Classic Editor: Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins in your WP Admin and deactivate the Classic Editor plugin.
- Enable both editors: If you prefer flexibility, navigate to Settings → Writing in your WP Admin (not the menu under Jetpack settings). Set Allow users to switch editors to Yes. You will only see these options if you have the Classic Editor plugin installed and active.
Some custom themes or plugins may prevent you from using the Block Editor. In that case, please contact the support team for the plugin or theme for further assistance.
For more details, see Using Blocks and the Classic Editor.
Add the Writing Prompt block
Add the Writing Prompt block to any post or page by searching for and selecting it in the block selector. You can only add the Writing Prompt block to a post or page once. If you attempt to add it again, it will appear disabled.
See our Jetpack Blocks page for more information about adding Jetpack blocks.
Writing prompt tags
When you add the Writing Prompt block to your post, dailyprompt tags will be automatically added and your post will be shown in the WordPress.com Reader.
If you don’t want to share your answer with other users, you can remove the tags after you put the block in your post.
To delete the tags, follow these steps:
- Click the Settings icon in the top-right corner of the editor and look for the Tags section in the Post menu.
- Under Add New Tag, find the tag you’d like to remove.
- Click the X to remove the tag.
Block settings
After adding a Writing Prompt block, you can adjust the layout using the block sidebar.
Select Block on the right sidebar to open the Block Settings to customize the look of the block.
Main settings
You can choose to display or hide the upper and lower parts of the block, which consist of the daily prompt label and the link to other responses on the WordPress.com Reader.
Color settings
You can customize the color of the text, background, and links in the Writing Prompt block.
To set the custom color for your text, background, and links, follow these steps:
- Click the Settings icon in the top-right corner of the editor and look for the Color section in the Block menu.
- Click to open the color picker for each category.
- Choose your desired color for text, background, and links.
Dimensions settings
Adjust the space around the Writing Prompt block by using the Dimensions setting. You can change the amount of padding both inside the border and within the margins above and below the block.
Use the slider or enter a specific value to adjust the spacing or click the link icon to change the values individually.
For a detailed description of the controls under Dimensions, please refer to the related WordPress support documentation.
Still need help?
Please contact support. We’re happy to advise.
) code in your post, use the following:
Markdown in Classic Editor
Compose posts and comments with links, lists, and other styles with Markdown, using regular characters and punctuation marks.
You can use Markdown on your Jetpack-powered blog for posts, pages, and comments. Here, you can find details and information on how to enable Markdown on your blog and write with it if you use the Classic Editor. See the Jetpack Markdown Block support guide for more information on using Markdown in the Block Editor.
Markdown is used by writers and bloggers who want a quick and easy way to write rich text without having to take their hands off the keyboard and without learning a lot of complicated code and shortcuts.
If you’re already familiar with Markdown, simply enable it on your blog and start writing. Refer to the WordPress.com Markdown Quick Reference page for help. Jetpack uses Markdown Extra, which adds some features not originally available in Markdown. For best results, please use the Text tab in the Editor, as the Visual editor can give unexpected results. See below for more details.
Enable Markdown
You can enable the Markdown for Classic Editor by following these steps,
Once activated, Markdown is enabled for posts and pages and is available to all users on your blog.
To enable Markdown for comments:
Visitors to your blog can now compose comments using Markdown.
Write content with Markdown
Markdown uses special characters and punctuation marks to indicate styles and links. The specific characters you use and how you place them in the document are key to how your document will be formatted.
Markdown converts these special characters to the appropriate formatting when the document is published. For best results, use the Text tab in the Editor. The Visual Editor can produce unexpected results.
For example, in Markdown, to emphasize a word, you wrap it with an asterisk on both ends, like this:
*emphasized*.When your writing is published, it will look like this: emphasized. Similarly, two asterisks denote strong text:**strong**will be published as strong.To indicate links, use regular and square parentheses. Wrap the text you want to link in square parentheses; immediately after it, insert the link target, wrapped in regular parentheses. The actual Markdown could look like this:
[Jetpack.com](https://jetpack.com/). When published, it will be a standard link: Jetpack.com.The original Markdown text you write will always remain in Markdown, so you can go back and edit it using Markdown. Only the published document – the post or the page – will be converted.
If you write a post in Markdown, it will be published as a fully formatted post on your blog, but when you go back and edit, it’ll still be in Markdown.
The best way to get started with Markdown is to experiment. Open the Markdown Quick Reference guide, start a draft post on your blog, and try to use the different features.
Markdown Extra and Markdown in Jetpack
Jetpack uses Markdown Extra by Michel Fortin. It includes features not originally available in Markdown, including improved support for inline HTML, code blocks, tables, and more. Code blocks can use three or more backticks (
```), as well as tildes (~~~).See the WordPress.com Markdown Quick Reference page for the most useful formatting and features offered by Markdown Extra. For more detailed information, see the original reference guide for Markdown and the Markdown Extra page.
However, the Markdown block currently follows the CommonMark spec. For more information, you can refer to the official CommonMark spec.
About Markdown
Markdown was created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz in 2004 as a solution for easily composing richly formatted text on the web. It employs plain text only and is based on conventions established in the computer and technology industry for writing emails and other documents with limited resources.
In plain text documents, the text you see on the screen represents all the information in the file, with no formatting or other data hidden from view. Plain text documents have been used for decades for their simplicity, portability, and reliability. You can probably still open and edit any plain text document from the past 40 years on any computing device available today.
Markdown has seen popular adoption on the web since it was first introduced, and it is now included in many sites and software programs.
Add Markdown support to your Custom Post Types.
There are two different options to add Markdown support to a specific Custom Post Type on your site.
You can add Markdown support to an existing post type thanks to the
add_post_type_support()function. To do so, add the following code to a functionality plugin:add_action( 'init', 'my_custom_init' ); function my_custom_init() { add_post_type_support( 'product', 'wpcom-markdown' ); }You’ll need to replace “product” with your Custom Post Type name.
Alternatively, you can add Markdown support when registering the post type, like so:
// Register Custom Post Type function custom_post_type() { $labels = array( 'name' => _x( 'Products', 'Post Type General Name', 'text_domain' ), ); $args = array( 'label' => __( 'product', 'text_domain' ), 'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'publicize', 'wpcom-markdown' ), ); register_post_type( 'product', $args ); } // Hook into the 'init' action add_action( 'init', 'custom_post_type', 0 );Still need help?
Please contact support. We’re happy to advise.
Privacy Information
Markdown is deactivated by default. If you ever need to deactivate this feature, you can toggle the Write posts or pages in plain-text Markdown syntax setting in the Composing section from Jetpack > Settings > Writing in your dashboard.
For activity tracking (detailed below): IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID and URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.
None.
We track when, and by which user, the feature is activated and deactivated.
None.
We sync a single option that identifies whether or not the feature is activated.
None.