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Formatting text

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents. Created by John Gruber in 2004, Markdown is now one of the world's most popular markup languages.

To learn more about the history of Markdown, visit Markdown Guide.

Markdown lets you style text. At Matillion, we use Markdown's styling options in the following ways:

Bold

Use bold to highlight clickable UI elements and menu names.

Use double asterisks ** either side of text you wish to embolden. Do not use double underscores for bold.

Italics

Use single underscores _ either side of text you wish to italicize. Do not use single asterisks for italics.

Underline

Do not underline.

Double quotes

Use double quotes or code font when directing a user to input certain text.

Use the straight double quote character ". Do not use “ or ”.

  • In the search bar, type "amplitude" and press ENTER. ✔
  • In the search bar, type amplitude and press ENTER. ✔

Code font

Use single backticks ` either side of text you wish to apply a monospace font to. Examples include:

  • Code in text
  • Inline code
  • Placeholder input code
  • Filenames
  • File paths
  • Class names
  • Method names
  • HTTP status codes
  • Console outputs

Do not use for production-ready code that a user may wish to copy and input. For this, use code blocks.

Code blocks

Use triple backticks ``` either side of text you wish to present as a copyable code block.

  • Invoke the programming language immediately after the opening triple backticks.
  • Indent using four spaces. You can set your text editor's standard TAB indent size in the app's settings.
  • Follow indentation guidelines for the relevant programming language. E.g. JSON, SQL, Python, etc.
  • Wrap lines at 80-100 characters to avoid overflow and to enhance readability on smaller screens (smartphones, tablets, small laptops).

Example:

   print("Hello, world.")

Component parameters

To document the parameter of a component in either the Data Productivity Cloud or Matillion ETL, format like so:

    `PARAMETER-NAME` = _PARAMETER-TYPE_


    PARAMETER-DESCRIPTION

    ---

Where:

  • PARAMETER-NAME is the name of the parameter as it appears in the component in-app.
  • PARAMETER-TYPE is a lowercase designation of the data type or setting type, e.g. string, drop-down, integer. For Boolean, use a capital B.
  • PARAMETER_DESCRIPTION is the description of the parameter, with any supporting lists, code, copyable code blocks, admonitions, and tables.
  • --- is a horizontal rule to signify the end of the parameter description.

Example:

Name = string

A human-readable name for the component.

Ampersand

Don't use & unless it is explicitly included in a UI element or the name of a menu. Use and instead.

Never use & when creating a URL.

Blockquotes

Only use blockquotes in Matillion documentation when directly quoting from another website, e.g. docs.snowflake.com. Additionally, italicize the text inside the block quote.

Where possible, precede the blockquote with a sentence that clarifies the upcoming blockquote is a direct quote.

Example:

To directly quote "Working with Warehouses" from docs.snowflake.com:

If you choose "Started", the warehouse starts consuming credits once all the compute resources are provisioned for the warehouse.

End of page

End each page with a blank newline. For example, if the last line with text is line 174, use line 175 as a blank line. Do not include additional blank lines.