How to add formatting to Medium articles with keyboard shortcuts

This article has been updated on November 9th, 2014

Some time ago I wanted to publish an article on Medium with code samples, but found nowhere how to insert one of these. After finding the answer in a Twitter post, I decided to have a closer look at the available keyboard shortcuts for Medium, of which some are not shown in the formatting bar.
I finally did find the Medium help page for keyboard shortcuts, although it seems only Apple Mac’s shortcuts were listed.
Anyway, here’s the list of keyboard shortcuts for Medium on Windows:

Ctrl + Alt + 0 = Starts a new paragraph
Ctrl + Alt + 1 = Turns a text block into / starts a new Heading 1 style
Ctrl + Alt + 2 = Turns a text block into / starts a new Heading 2 style
Ctrl + Alt + 5 = Turns a text block into / starts a new BlockQuote style
Ctrl + Alt + 6 = Turns a text block into / starts a new Code style
Ctrl + Alt + 3 = Turns a text block into / starts a new Heading 3 style

Ctrl + b = Turns selected text into bold style
Ctrl + k = Adds a new link
Ctrl + i = Turns selected text into italic style
Ctrl + e = Centers text. This shortcut presumably replaces the now removed Pullquote shortcut, minus the font size (Ctrl + 7, no longer working)

One last interesting shortcut:
Ctrl + : = brings up the shortcut menu with most of the keyboard shortcuts (not all).

Previously (read 2013), the ‘Alt’ was omitted from the first six keyboard shortcut combinations, but as Google Chrome assigned the Ctrl + <number> shortcuts for navigating between browser tabs, Medium’s Ctrl + <number> shortcuts could no longer be used.

Third-Party Embeddings

Third-party embeddings are possible for a nice set of websites at the time of writing (Youtube, Vimeo, Twitter, Vines, Kickstarter, SoundCloud, Instagram, Rd.io, Github gists). You can view an example of these in this article. Adressing developer concerns, Medium has added support for Github gists, and though this is a step forward, unfortunately gists do not allow the same interactivity as code snippets from sites like jsfiddle.net, codepen.io, jsbin.com and other similar Javascript snippet websites.

Given that Medium uses Embed.ly, I’ve decided it might be worth a test to try out some of the not-officially-supported embeds anyway, so here goes:

Codepen.io embed

vmIfr

Jsbin.com embed

JS Bin

Jsfiddle.net embed

Edit fiddle - JSFiddle

As you can see, the embedding service detects the website, but does not correctly generate an embed. What about static code, such as pastebin?

[HTML] Tumblr Theme Base Code - Pastebin.com

At least it does show the correct title…

For further reading on Medium features, check out the following article:
- Why Medium is awesome and why it pisses me off, Brad Chin

Medium is excited to present Epic, a new publication that specializes in long-form narrative journalism.

Epic is the brainchild of Joshuah Bearman and Joshua Davis, two experienced feature writers who collectively have written for the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Wired, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and other outlets. You might recognize Joshuah Bearman’s name from the Wired article he wrote that became the basis for the movie Argo. In Epic’s inaugural piece,“The Mercenary,” Joshua Davis tells the tale of Roy Petersen, a Vietnam veteran and gun for hire who takes a job in Peru to find a cache of gold stolen from a mine. Once there, he teams up with a female translator. But not everyone wants the gold to be found.

You can find this and future stories in the Epic Magazine collection on Medium.

Medium was conceived as a better place to read and write things that matter. As the platform marks its one-year anniversary, commissioning professional long-form journalism is a natural development of that mission—one that will help us better understand the dynamics of our network as we experiment with new kinds of stories.

This partnership would not have been possible without the dedication of Evan Hansen, who had worked with Joshua Davis at Wired. He worked tirelessly to help make “The Mercenary” read and look its best.

We believe that Epic represents the benchmark for narrative journalism, and Medium is proud to be its partner. We hope you enjoy the read.

Epic on Medium was originally published in Medium Writer’s Guide on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.