CTAN Markdown: Links

Links can be given by enclosing them in square brackets. The URL in brackets is used both for the link and the text to be shown.

  [url]  

Links may have text and URl separated. Enclose the text in square brackets followed by the URL in parentheses.

  [text](url)  

Finally the title can be specified by appending it to the URL in the parentheses enclosed in single quotes or double quotes.

  [text](url "title")
  [text](url 'title')  

References

You can define shortcuts for URLs to be used somewhere else. To use the reference append it to the text of the link both in square brackets.

  [text][ref]

The definition of a reference is given by following the ref name in square brackets by a colon and the URL. Optionally the title can follow if it is enclosed in single quotes or in double quotes.

  [ref]: url
  [ref]: url "title"
  [ref]: url 'title'  

Note that reference definitions are not rendered. They are expanded in-line.

Auto-Linking

URLs starting with http://, https://, ftp://, irc://, or mailto: are automatically translated into a link.

  abc http://www.tug.org
  def https://www.ctan.org
  ghi mailto:webmaster@ctan.org jkl 

Link Shortcuts

Absolute URLs can be enclosed in <...> to be rendered as URLs. This means that the protocol has to be specified and relative URLs are not supported.

  abc <http://www.tug.org>
  def <https://www.ctan.org>
  ghi <mailto:webmaster@ctan.org> jkl