SectionsΒΆ

Sections are identified through their titles, which are marked up with adornment characters.

  • Many adornment characters are supported. However, the following characters are recommended =, -, _, *, +, and #.

  • The characters are specified as underlines below the title text or underlines and matching overlines above the title.

  • An underline or overline is a single repeated character that begins in column 1 and forms a line extending at least as far as the right edge of the title text.

  • Underline-only adornment styles are distinct from overline-and-underline styles that use the same character.

  • There may be any number of levels of section titles, although some output formats may have limits (e.g. HTML has 6 levels).

Rather than imposing a fixed number and order of section title adornment styles:

  • The order enforced will be the order as encountered.

  • The first style encountered will be an outermost title (e.g. HTML <h1>), the second style will be a subtitle, the third will be a subsubtitle, and so on.

  • Documents should consistently use the established section title hierarchy.

Four section levels are defined below using only underline adornment

Section 1
=========

Section 2
---------

Section 3
+++++++++

Section 4
#########

Four section levels are defined below using both overline and underline adornment.

=========
Section 1
=========

---------
Section 2
---------

Section 3
=========

Section 4
---------