Creating Markdown Links

There are two types of links you can create in Markdown:

• those which display just the URL. e.g., https://craigrussell.io
• those which display custom text. e.g., My Blog

This post details how to use both types.

Creating a Markdown Link with Custom Text

The standard syntax for creating links in markdown is providing text to display in square brackets [ ], followed by the URL in parentheses ( ). For example, to link to this blog, I could do this:

[My Blog](https://craigrussell.io), which renders as My Blog

💡 Tips

• It is important there are no spaces between [ ] and ( )
• It is important the [ ] appears before the ( )

Creating a Markdown Link which just shows the URL

Instead of adding display text for the link you can have it displayed as just the URL, and there are 2 ways to do this.

Option 1: repeating URL as the title ❌

One way to create a link with no title is to duplicate the URL into both parts of the link: e.g.,

[https://craigrussell.io](https://craigrussell.io), which renders as https://craigrussell.io.

• ➕ You probably already know the syntax
• ➖ It's annoying to provide the same URL twice
• ➖ It is error-prone if you update one part and forget to update the other

Option 2: using angle brackets ✅

The best way to create a link which just shows the URL and no custom display text is to wrap it inside angle brackets < >.

<https://craigrussell.io>, which renders as https://craigrussell.io

• ➕ Less typing required
• ➕ No chance for display text and URL to mismatch
• ➖ Need to remember the alternative syntax style

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