Markdown cells.

Markdown cells hold the narrative — headings, prose, math, images. They render inline and export cleanly to HTML and Jupyter.

Editing & rendering

Markdown cells live in two modes: edit and preview. Double-click to edit, click outside or hit Esc to render. Cmd+Enter renders without leaving the cell.

Inside edit mode you get the same Monaco editor as code cells — paste a long block of markdown and it stays well-indented.

The same markdown cell shown in edit mode and rendered mode, side by side./docs-images/notebooks/markdown-toggle.png
Double-click to edit, Esc to render.

Supported syntax

CommonMark plus a few common extensions. Everything below renders as you'd expect:

  • Headings — # H1 through ###### H6
  • Emphasis — *italic*, **bold**, ~~strike~~
  • Lists — bulleted, numbered, nested, and task lists with - [ ]
  • Links — [label](url) and reference style
  • Tables — pipe syntax with header alignment
  • Code fences with language tag for syntax highlighting
  • Blockquotes — leading >
  • Footnotes — [^1]
## Findings

- Revenue is up **18%** quarter-over-quarter
- The largest channel is *Direct*, but **Referral** is growing fastest

| Channel  | Revenue | Δ vs. Q1 |
|----------|---------|----------|
| Direct   | $4.2M   | +12%     |
| Referral | $1.1M   | +44%     |

See the chart below for the breakdown by month.

Math

Inline math with $...$ and block math with $$...$$. Rendered by KaTeX, so the same syntax as Jupyter / Pandoc / most notebook tools.

The standard error of the mean is $\sigma_{\bar{x}} = \sigma / \sqrt{n}$.

$$
\text{NPS} = \frac{P - D}{N} \times 100
$$
Tip

Reference math inline by name with $E = mc^2$ and block math when it stands on its own line. Block math renders centered.

Images

Drop an image directly into a markdown cell — Orchid copies it into .orchid/assets/ and inserts a relative link. Or write the link by hand:

![Quarterly revenue chart](./assets/q1-revenue.png)

Local paths stay local in the YAML and travel with the notebook. Remote URLs work too but won't render in offline mode.

Embeds & callouts

Markdown cells render basic HTML — you can drop in an <iframe> for a Loom embed or a <details> block for a collapsible section. Sanitization runs in the published view to strip script tags.

In the published view

When you publish a notebook or pin a markdown cell to a dashboard, the rendered output is what viewers see — never the raw markdown. Headings become anchored, math typesets, images are inlined as data URIs in the HTML export.

Heads up

Markdown cells don't have a kernel — they never "run." They're also the only cell type that can't produce a DataFrame, so they don't show up in the variables panel.

Back to Cells & blocks, on to Chart cells, or jump to the Notebooks overview.