Documentation / Publishing

Body Format

The Body Format setting controls whether article bodies are delivered to your website as raw Markdown or converted to HTML. You'll find it in Project Settings → Publishing Destination.

How it works

The content pipeline always generates article bodies in Markdown — this is the format stored internally regardless of which option you choose. The Body Format setting only takes effect at publish time, when Power Author assembles the payload that gets sent to your website.

Here's what happens when you publish an article:

1. Power Author reads the article body from the pipeline output (always stored as Markdown).
2. If Body Format is set to HTML, the Markdown is converted to HTML (headings become <h2> tags, bold text becomes <strong>, lists become <ul>/<ol>, etc.).
3. If Body Format is set to Markdown, the body is sent as-is — no conversion happens.
4. Any Snippet markers in the body are replaced with the appropriate version (Markdown content or HTML content) matching the chosen format.
5. The final body is included in the payload sent to your publishing destination.

When to use Markdown

Choose Markdown if your website:

• Has its own Markdown rendering pipeline (e.g. react-markdown, remark, unified).
• Uses a framework that processes Markdown or MDX at build time or render time (Next.js with next-mdx-remote, Astro, Gatsby, etc.).
• Wants full control over how each element is rendered — for example, mapping Markdown headings to custom React components with anchor links, or rendering code blocks with syntax highlighting.

This is the default and the most flexible option. Your website receives clean Markdown and decides exactly how to render it.

When to use HTML

Choose HTML if your website:

• Stores pre-rendered HTML and injects it directly into the page (e.g. with dangerouslySetInnerHTML in React or v-html in Vue).
• Uses a CMS or database that expects HTML content rather than Markdown.
• Doesn't have a Markdown processing library installed and you want ready-to-display content.

With this option, the conversion is done by Power Author before publishing, so your website doesn't need any Markdown tooling.

How it affects Snippets

When you create a Snippet, you provide two versions of its content: a Markdown Content field and an HTML Content field.

At publish time, snippet markers in the body (e.g. <!-- component:cta -->) are replaced with the version that matches the Body Format setting:

• Markdown format → the Markdown Content field is inserted.
• HTML format → the HTML Content field is inserted.

This means you can tailor snippet output for each format. For example, a call-to-action snippet might use a simple Markdown link for the Markdown version, and a styled <div> with classes for the HTML version.

Quick reference

Changing the setting

You can switch between Markdown and HTML at any time in Project Settings. The change only affects future publishes — articles that have already been published are not re-sent automatically. If you switch formats and want existing articles updated, re-publish them from the Publishing page.