title: Zettelmarkup: Second Steps role: manual tags: #manual #tutorial #zettelmarkup #zettelstore syntax: zmk back: 00001007900000 backward: 00001007900000 00001007903000 box-number: 1 copyright: (c) 2020-present by Detlef Stern created: 20220811115501 forward: 00001006050000 00001007000000 00001007030000 00001007030300 00001007040310 00001007903000 lang: en license: EUPL-1.2-or-later modified: 20251209161541 published: 20251209161541 visibility: public After you have [learned](00001007903000) the basic concepts and markup of Zettelmarkup (paragraphs, emphasized text, and lists), this zettel introduces you to the concepts of links, thematic breaks, and headings. # Links A Zettelstore is much more useful, if you connect related zettel. If you read a zettel later, this allows you to know about the context of a zettel. [Zettelmarkup](00001007000000) allows you to specify such a connection. A connection can be specified within a paragraph via [Links](00001007040310). * A link always starts with two left square bracket characters and ends with two right square bracket characters: `[[...]]`. * Within these character sequences you specify the [zettel identifier](00001006050000) of the zettel you want to reference: `[[00001007903000]]` will connect to zettel containing the first steps into Zettelmarkup. * In addition, you should give the link a more readable description. This is done by prepending the description before the reference and use the vertical bar character to separate both: `[[First Steps|00001007903000]]`. You are not restricted to reference your zettel. Alternatively, you might specify a URL of an external website: `[[Zettelstore|https://zettelstore.de/]]`. Of course, if you just want to specify the URL, you are allowed to omit the description: `[[https://zettelstore.de/]]` Again, you probably see a principle. # Thematic Breaks [And now for something completely different](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Now_for_Something_Completely_Different). Sometimes, you want to insert a thematic break into your text, because two paragraphs do not separate enough. In Zettelmarkup this is done by entering three or more hyphen-minus characters at the beginning of a new line. You must not include blank lines around this line, but it can be more readable, if you want to look at the Zettelmarkup text. First paragraph. --- Second paragraph. First paragraph. --- Second paragraph. Both are rendered as: Try it! This might be the time to relax a rule about paragraphs. You must not specify a blank line to end a paragraph. Any Zettelmarkup that must start at the beginning of a new line will end a previous paragraph. Similar, a blank line must not precede a paragraph. This applies also to lists, as given in the first steps, as well as other [similar markup](00001007030000) you will probably use later. # Headings Headings explicitly structure a zettel, similar to thematic breaks, but gives the resulting part a name. To specify a heading in Zettelmarkup, you must enter at least three equal signs, followed by a space, followed by the text of the heading. Everything must be one the same line. The number of equal signs determines the importance of the heading: less equal signs means more important. Therefore, three equal signs treat a heading as most important. It is a level-1 heading. Zettelmarkup supports up to five levels. To specify such a heading, you must enter seven equal signs, plus the space and the text. If you enter more than seven equal signs, the resulting heading is still of level 5. See the [description of headings](00001007030300) for more details and examples.