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One of the many reasons I decided to use Jetpack was because of its support for using Markdown. Markdown, for those who don’t know, provides a way to make lists, headings, links, & other text formatting symbols, e.g., underlining, bold, etc, without the toolbar & only by using characters like *, #, & -. For example, to create an unordered list, just put an asterisk (*) or a – & a space in front of each of the list items. To make text bold, just precede & follow it with asterisks or underscores (no spaces. See:
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I personally absolutely love Markdown. So imagine my disappointment when I couldn’t get it to work.

The first thing to do is to ensure that Markdown is enabled, which actually occurs in 2 separate locations within Jetpack. Go to ‘Jetpack > Settings > Writing’ & ensure that the checkbox beside “Write posts or pages in plain-text Markdown syntax” is checked.

Next, go to ‘Jetpack > Debug’, which is toward the bottom of the page, & click the link.

Once the Jetpack debug center is opened, scroll down to the link that says ‘Access the full list of Jetpack modules available on your site’.

When you click it, the full list of available Jetpack modules opens.

Ensure that the Markdown module is activated–the link will say ‘Deactivate’ if it is. If it is not, click the ‘Activate’ link, which will make the module available to use on your site.

Unfortunately for me, I had already gone through all those steps, & my Markdown still wasn’t working. 🙁 So I hit up Google & landed on the Jetpack support page. A suggestion that kept consistently recurring is to deactivate & then reactivate the module. Pain in the neck, but it was more of a pain that Markdown wasn’t functional, so I did it.

Yay! Markdown now works as expected. If you’re having trouble with any Jetpack modules, this might be an easy solution. Good luck with your website.