Question

How can I change the default behavior in the markdown filter so that it transforms a newline to a br tag?

Answer 1

I don’t think messing around with the newline syntax is a good idea …

I agree with Henrik’s comment. From the markdown docs:

When you do want to insert a <br /> break tag using Markdown, you end a line with two or more spaces, then type return.

Yes, this takes a tad more effort to create a <br />, but a simplistic “every line break is a <br />” rule wouldn’t work for Markdown. Markdown’s email-style blockquoting and multi-paragraph list items work best — and look better — when you format them with hard breaks.

Have you looked at the other Django markup options, textile and restructuredtext? Their syntax might suit you better.

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but if you still want to …

A rough and ready method is to chain the markdown and linebreaksbr filters.

{{ value|markdown|linebreaksbr }}

This runs the markdown filter, then the linebreaksbr filter, which replaces \n with <br />. You’ll probably end up with too many linebreaks, but that might be better for you than too few.

If you a better solution than that, you could

1. Write a custom filter, as John suggests in his answer.

2. Dive into the the python-markdown library, which Django uses, and write an extension that implements your desired newline syntax. You would then use the extension with the filter

   {{ value|markdown:"linebreakextension" }}