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@jonikarppinen
Last active April 21, 2024 23:44
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How to comment out stuff in Markdown on GitHub?

Comments in GitHub flavour of Markdown

As answers to this Stack Overflow question reveal, using <!--- and ---> or <!-- and --> works (view source by clicking "Raw"):

Inline comments

How about commenting out <!--- just ---> a part of one line?

If you know of a way, please show me how by cloning this Gist, or commenting below!

Update 2019

As several commenters pointed out, for inline commenting <!-- a normal html comment --> now works.

You can't see this:

Btw, wow, I created this gist in 2014 and only now became aware of the discussion and that it's the top Google hit for markdown comments github. 👍

@martinamorris
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Is it possible to comment out lines that have code embedded? I have some lines like:

You will then need to: library(statnet)

And when commented like this:

[//]: # (You will then need to: library(statnet))

I am getting this:

image

Thanks!

@SiddharthShyniben
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Now you see me ​​

Screen Shot 2021-07-14 at 9 21 56 AM

Neat, huh? Only the URL has to be properly formatted. so we get https://now-you-don't

Here's another

Screen Shot 2021-07-14 at 9 25 01 AM
This might be really useful, for something like comment footnotes:

@rinogo
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rinogo commented Oct 19, 2021

Thanks for this! Also, regarding your surprise about being the top Google hit:
Google is weird. Surely, no one is linking to this gist, but Google still considers it authoritative. Google is weird.

@kasperosterbye
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I do not understand why, but it seems like <? and ?> can be used for comments, both multiline and single line. Anyone knows why?

@SiddharthShyniben
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@kasperosterbye Nice find! I'm guessing it has something to do with PHP or XML?

@thewhitegrizzli
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@kasperosterbye nice thanks what i was actually looking for

@thewhitegrizzli
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@kasperosterbye and I have no clue why I don't rly care hahahahha thks! cheers

@benkoshy
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<!---
your comment goes here
and here
-->

Cutting and pasting the SO answer, for easy reference.

@kolakode
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For whole line and multiline comments, this tweak of Rowe's suggestion appears to work for mdcat, VS Code, Gist preview, and online markdown editors I've tried:

[this is a one line comment]: #
   [  it's ok to have 1, 2, or 3 leading spaces  ]: #
but anything else before [ or ]: # after would unhide the comment
as would indenting it 4 or more spaces.

[
this is a
    multiline
comment
]: #

[   as is this compact version
    with no space between `:` and `#`
]:#

  [
    it too can have the `[`
    indented up to 3 spaces
        other line can be indented more
  ]: #

Indenting the [ bracket of the comment 4 or more spaces will make the line be rendered as a pre-formatted block and make the comment visible. Personally, I like the compact version better than the <!-- ... --> for multiline comments, but this trick isn't supported by most syntax highlighters.

@amenity
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amenity commented Sep 6, 2022

Thank you so much @jonikarppinen 🤗 !! Here's hoping Github (along w/ Slack & Zenhub, plz) make their markdown more standard/vanilla/usable so we can all be productive at work.

<!--cc/ @jonikarppinen, in case your two Github handles are not the same. :upside_down_face: -->

@A-Kiwams
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A-Kiwams commented Sep 7, 2022

Works simple

@GoelDarpan
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GoelDarpan commented Oct 9, 2023

Need help - dotnet/docfx#9285

@sienna-jeong
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Is there a keyboard shortcut to do it?

@wxnnvs
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wxnnvs commented Feb 27, 2024

@a-pav
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a-pav commented Apr 18, 2024

I just used this trick in a comment where I thought some details I've wrote might be unnecessary but at the same time I didn't want lose those details, and, I might actually need those in a follow up comment. So I commented them out, now I have access to those by pressing Edit mwahahaha :))

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