We recently rolled out two new community features: comment formatting and previews. Both come, in part, from feedback from our readers.

Here’s how they work.

Formatting

Commenters now have access to bold, italics, links and block quotes. You can use either HTML or Markdown to format your comments.

If you need a hand with any formatting, click on the question mark in the top-right of the comment entry box. This will bring up a Markdown cheat-sheet to get you started.

Previews

You can now preview your comments before posting. Just press the “Preview” tab after typing out your comment – it’ll show your entry exactly as it will appear on site. Hopefully this will help you spot any typos before going live.

So this:

Will become this:

I hope both of these changes help make The Conversation a better place to chat and debate. Let me know if you have any trouble with these features.