The Dumbshits Guide To Pastedown

(And how to Markdown too I guess)

Last updated: Sep 2, 2021

Introduction

I made this little guide just to keep my writing muscles a-typin', and because I like writing documentation just as much as I like writing stories. And I don't even have to threaten my muse with a tire iron to do it!
But really, I write it in the hope that it's useful to fellow writefriends out there that might want to leverage this neat little format for themselves.

What is Pastedown?

Pastedown is an extension of Markdown formatting, with some extra little additions for horsewords.
If you don't know Markdown, don't worry; I'll cover it in this guide so you don't have to open a new tab to learn it.
If you already know how to use Markdown, congratulations! You already know how to use Pastedown, and it supports the following Markdown features:

• Bolding, italics, bolded italics, and strikethrough
• Headings
• Horizontal rules
• Hyperlinks
• Image Embeds
• Code blocks, both inline and fenced
• Bullet and numbered lists
• Tables

Who Pastedown Is For

Pastedown does not behave like you would expect for a normal paste, let alone a typical 4chan post.
If you just want to post your horsewords in the plainest and most simple way possible, don't use Pastedown and just use the Greentext formatting option like you normally would, because Pastedown will fuck up your text in ways you don't expect it to.
On the other hand, if:

• You want to use additional formatting such as bolding, italics, strikethroughs, and other such niceties that you'd otherwise only find on Fimfiction,
  Or hell, if you want to mirror from or outright replace Fimfiction as the place to post them city slicker prose horsewords,
• You want to create shiny and beautiful OP pastes for the thread or general of your choice,
• You're more comfortable working with Markdown,
• Or if you just want to Think Different™,

Then you should absolutely give Pastedown a whirl!

A Word Of Warning

Pastedown is still an experimental format, and is actively being worked on by PonepasteAnon. As such, you should absolutely expect breaking changes to happen to the format that will require some manual attention on your part.
I'll do my best to amend this guide when and if these breaking changes happen; errata notices will be posted underneath this warning, along with a description of the issue and a solution at the end of the paste.

Basics

First, we'll go over the essentials that you'll need to know to use Pastedown, in order of most important to least.
Note that if you're confused at any point about how you're supposed to type something, you can always view the raw version of this paste here, and highlight the text to see what's going on.

The (New)line Is Not Enough

All of your lines of text must be ended with two spaces; as in, you press the spacebar twice at the end of each line before you hit enter.
To see why this is important, let's compare and contrast text with and without two spaces:

Did you hear about  
Pastebin nuking all those greens  
Those nigger faggots  

With two spaces at the end of each line, this little haiku renders as:

Did you hear about
Pastebin nuking all those greens
Those nigger faggots

However, if you remove the two spaces from the end of those lines, it renders as:

Did you hear about Pastebin nuking all those greens Those nigger faggots

If that seems annoying, that's because it is.
However, it's a "feature" of Markdown, and not a bug in Pastedown.

I Ain't Typing That Shit, Nigga

If you're sane, the idea of manually doublespacing all of your existing text is abject lunacy. Fortunately, we have some tools at our disposal to automate this.
Online Markdown converters exist, such as this one, where you can just paste in your text and have it automatically doublespace everything for you.
Hate online tools? Don't worry: your sanctified, 100% pure and perfectly riced macOS Gahnoo+Lunix box can do it for you with a little sed.

sed 's/\s*$/  /' green.txt > pastedown.md

i use arch, btw

It Ain't Easy Being >Green

Bold, Italics, And Other Markdown Coolness

You can bold and/or italicize your text at any point by using asterisks * to surround your text like quotation marks.
Using one set of asterisks *like this* will italicize your text,
Using two sets of asterisks **like this**will bold your text,
And using three sets ***like this***will do both at the same time.

Oh yeah, and you can also strikethrough your text with two tildes ~~like this~~, using them to hide your shame the same way you use the asterisks.

More Great And Powerful Tricks

Now that you know the essentials to using Pastedown, it's time to go over the cooler shit you can do with the format.

Rules For Me But Not For Thee

You can insert a horizontal line at any point in your paste by having a line with only three dashes --- or underscores ___ in it. Three examples are up above: ↑ ↑ ↑
You can use more dashes or underscores if you want, but it's not required.
Be careful when using dashes; if you use dashes directly underneath text, it will instead create a heading, explained below: ↓ ↓ ↓

PAY ATTENTION TO THIS MASSIVE FUCKING HEADING

The large title text you've been seeing all throughout this paste is called "heading text".
Create a heading by using a pound sign #.
You can use up to 6 pound signs in a heading. Using more will make the heading smaller.
You can also create the largest size heading by "underlining" your text with at least three dashes ---, instead of using a pound sign.

Example

# Title
## Title
### Title
#### Title
##### Title
###### Title
Title
---

Renders as:

Title

Title

Title

Title

Title

Title

Title

Social Links And Dick Pics

If you want to link to other sites, you can embed the link right into your text, instead of just pasting the link directly into your text.
Simply write your link as [Text of your link](Site URL).
If you want to link to an image instead, you can embed the image straight into your paste in a similar fashion:
Simply write your image link as ![Text to show if image is unavailable](Image URL)

Make sure to follow Ponepaste's rules about URLs and images! Generally speaking, that means no Tor links, no pirated shit like Patreon dumps, no IRL gore, and nothing illegal in the USA.
Embedded images should follow the SFW rules of /mlp/, meaning nothing explicit. You can still link to explicit shit, but you can't embed it.

Learn To Code

Code blocks, verbatim text, monospace, whatever you want to call it, is dictated by using backticks `.
You can have code inline with your text using one or two sets of backticks, using them like quotation marks.
You can also have a large block of code instead of inline by fencing it with three backticks, like so:

By the way, that Markdown convention of using two spaces at the end of each line doesn't apply in these code blocks.
Just something to keep in mind.

Purple Autism In Convenient Paste Format

Like lists? Well, you can make your own lists in Pastedown, and it's real easy to do!
Start a line with either a - or a +, then begin typing up your list. (You can also start a list with an asterisk, but that can conflict with bold/italic text, so I'd avoid doing that.)
If you start a new line right under a bullet point, it will be added to the previous bullet point.
You can also nest bullet points by using extra bullet characters.
Finally, you can end the list simply by using two newlines (hitting enter twice).

If you need numbered lists instead of bullet points, they work exactly the same; just start the list with 1. and other such numbers.

Example

+ List entry 1  
+ List entry 2  
Extra info for entry 2  
+ + Sub-entry 1  
Extra info for sub-entry 1  
+ + Sub-entry 2  
+ + + Sub-sub-entry 1  
+ List entry 3  

1. List entry 1  
2. List entry 2  
Extra info for entry 2  
3. 1. Sub-entry 1  
Extra info for sub-entry 1  
4. 2. Sub-entry 2  
5. 3. 1. Sub-sub-entry 1  
6. List entry 3  

Will render as:

• List entry 1
• List entry 2
  Extra info for entry 2
• • Sub-entry 1
    Extra info for sub-entry 1
• • Sub-entry 2
• • • Sub-sub-entry 1
• List entry 3

1. List entry 1
2. List entry 2
   Extra info for entry 2
3. 1. Sub-entry 1
      Extra info for sub-entry 1
4. 2. Sub-entry 2
5. 3. 1. Sub-sub-entry 1
6. List entry 3

I'm About To Flip A Fucking Table Right Now

Tables are defined using pipes |, and you use them to create columns, with text in between the pipes.
The second row of your table must always be filled with at least three dashes --- in each column, but you can also align the text in the columns by using colons :; :--- for left, ---: for right, and :---: for centred text.
Bold, italics, strikethroughs, links, and image embeds can all be done inside of a table.
But really, this is better explained with a visual example:

Example

| Example of... | Who is... | And should... |
| --- | --- | :---: |
| Best Pony | Being the very best | Like nopony ever was |
| Scruffy | Doing it for free | Indulge in mommy's finest tendies |
| (You) | A massive cockgobbling faggot | **Fuck off immediately** |

Renders as:

Errata

Nothing so far, stay posted!

Cheatsheet

Format	Usage	Notes	Example
Greentext	Begin line with >	Only works at the start of a line. Can't use in a table or list.	↑ See above ↑
Redtext	Begin line with <	Only works at the start of a line. Can't use in a table or list.	↑ See above ↑
Purpletext	Begin line with @	Only works at the start of a line. Can't use in a table or list.	↑ See above ↑
Horizontal Line	Begin line with at least 3 dashes - or underscores _	Using dashes directly under text will instead create a heading, see next entry ↓	↑ See above ↑
Headings	Begin line with 1-6 #, using more pound signs for smaller headings	Limit of 6 before formatting breaks. Can also underline text with at least 3 dashes to create a max size heading.	↑ See above ↑
Italics	Quote text with *	Will span multiple lines until terminated.	Sample Text
Bold	Quote text with **	Will span multiple lines until terminated.	Sample Text
Bolded Italics	Quote text with ***	Will span multiple lines until terminated.	Sample Text
Inline Code	Quote text with ` or ``	Will span multiple lines until terminated.	Sample Text
Code Block	Begin and end a group of lines with ```	Will span multiple lines until terminated.	↑ See above ↑
Strikethrough	Quote text with ~~	Will span multiple lines until terminated.	Sample Text
Hyperlinks	Write as [Link text](URL)	Follow site rules regarding links.	Ponepaste ko-fi
Inline images	Write as 	/mlp/ SFW rules apply, see site rules.
Bullet list	Begin line with +, -, or *	Continues spanning until broken with two newlines. Can nest entries.	↑ See above ↑
Ordered list	Begin line with 1. or another number	Continues spanning until broken with two newlines. Can nest entries.	↑ See above ↑
Tables	Define columns with pipes |, text goes between pipes. Second row must only contain at least three dashes in all columns. Populate remaining rows.	Colons : can be used in the second row to align column text; left, right, or centred.	Nigger just read the table example above, it's easier than reading this