Can I create links with 'target="_blank"' in Markdown?

Html Hyperlink Markdown Target New Window

Html Problem Overview

Is there a way to create a link in Markdown that opens in a new window? If not, what syntax do you recommend to do this? I'll add it to the markdown compiler I use. I think it should be an option.

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

As far as the Markdown syntax is concerned, if you want to get that detailed, you'll just have to use HTML.

<a href="http://example.com/" target="_blank">Hello, world!</a>

Most Markdown engines I've seen allow plain old HTML, just for situations like this where a generic text markup system just won't cut it. (The StackOverflow engine, for example.) They then run the entire output through an HTML whitelist filter, regardless, since even a Markdown-only document can easily contain XSS attacks. As such, if you or your users want to create _blank links, then they probably still can.

If that's a feature you're going to be using often, it might make sense to create your own syntax, but it's generally not a vital feature. If I want to launch that link in a new window, I'll ctrl-click it myself, thanks.

Solution 2 - Html

Kramdown supports it. It's compatible with standard Markdown syntax, but has many extensions, too. You would use it like this:

[link](url){:target="_blank"}

Solution 3 - Html

I don't think there is a markdown feature, although there may be other options available if you want to open links which point outside your own site automatically with JavaScript.

Array.from(javascript.links)
    .filter(link => link.hostname != window.location.hostname)
    .forEach(link => link.target = '_blank');

jsFiddle.

If you're using jQuery:

$(document.links).filter(function() {
    return this.hostname != window.location.hostname;
}).attr('target', '_blank');

jsFiddle.

Solution 4 - Html

With Markdown v2.5.2, you can use this:

[link](URL){:target="_blank"}

Solution 5 - Html

So, it isn't quite true that you cannot add link attributes to a Markdown URL. To add attributes, check with the underlying markdown parser being used and what their extensions are.

In particular, pandoc has an extension to enable link_attributes, which allow markup in the link. e.g.

[Hello, world!](http://example.com/){target="_blank"}

For those coming from R (e.g. using rmarkdown, bookdown, blogdown and so on), this is the syntax you want.
For those not using R, you may need to enable the extension in the call to pandoc with +link_attributes

Note: This is different than the kramdown parser's support, which is one the accepted answers above. In particular, note that kramdown differs from pandoc since it requires a colon -- : -- at the start of the curly brackets -- {}, e.g.

[link](http://example.com){:hreflang="de"}

In particular:

# Pandoc
{ attribute1="value1" attribute2="value2"}

# Kramdown
{: attribute1="value1" attribute2="value2"}
 ^
 ^ Colon

Solution 6 - Html

One global solution is to put <base target="_blank"> into your page's <head> element. That effectively adds a default target to every anchor element. I use markdown to create content on my Wordpress-based web site, and my theme customizer will let me inject that code into the top of every page. If your theme doesn't do that, there's a plug-in

Solution 7 - Html

For ghost markdown use:

[Google](https://google.com" target="_blank)

Found it here: https://cmatskas.com/open-external-links-in-a-new-window-ghost/

Solution 8 - Html

I'm using Grav CMS and this works perfectly:

Body/Content:
Some text[1]

Body/Reference:
[1]: http://somelink.com/?target=_blank

Just make sure that the target attribute is passed first, if there are additional attributes in the link, copy/paste them to the end of the reference URL.

Also work as direct link:
[Go to this page](http://somelink.com/?target=_blank)

Solution 9 - Html

Not a direct answer, but may help some people ending up here.

If you are using GatsbyJS there is a plugin that automatically adds target="_blank" to external links in your markdown.

It's called gatsby-remark-external-links and is used like so:

yarn add gatsby-remark-external-links

plugins: [      
  {
    resolve: `gatsby-transformer-remark`,
    options: {
      plugins: [{
        resolve: "gatsby-remark-external-links",
        options: {
          target: "_blank",
          rel: "noopener noreferrer"
        }
      }]
    }
  },

It also takes care of the rel="noopener noreferrer".

Reference the docs if you need more options.

Solution 10 - Html

You can do this via native javascript code like so:

  
var pattern = /a href=/g;
var sanitizedMarkDownText = rawMarkDownText.replace(pattern,"a target='_blank' href=");

JSFiddle Code

Solution 11 - Html

In my project I'm doing this and it works fine:

[Link](https://example.org/ "title" target="_blank")

[Link](https://example.org/ "title" target="_blank")

But not all parsers let you do that.

Solution 12 - Html

There's no easy way to do it, and like @alex has noted you'll need to use JavaScript. His answer is the best solution but in order to optimize it, you might want to filter only to the post-content links.

<script>
    var links = document.querySelectorAll( '.post-content a' );  
    for (var i = 0, length = links.length; i < length; i++) {  
        if (links[i].hostname != window.location.hostname) {
            links[i].target = '_blank';
        }
    }
</script>

The code is compatible with IE8+ and you can add it to the bottom of your page. Note that you'll need to change the ".post-content a" to the class that you're using for your posts.

As seen here: http://blog.hubii.com/target-_blank-for-links-on-ghost/

Solution 13 - Html

If someone is looking for a global rmarkdown (pandoc) solution.

Using Pandoc Lua Filter

You could write your own Pandoc Lua Filter which adds target="_blank" to all links:

Write a Pandoc Lua Filter, name it for example links.lua

function Link(element)

    if 
        string.sub(element.target, 1, 1) ~= "#"
    then
        element.attributes.target = "_blank"
    end
    return element

end

Then update your _output.yml

bookdown::gitbook:
  pandoc_args:
    - --lua-filter=links.lua

Inject `<base target="_blank">` in Header

An alternative solution would be to inject <base target="_blank"> in the HTML head section using the includes option:

Create a new HTML file, name it for example links.html

<base target="_blank">

Then update your _output.yml

bookdown::gitbook:
  includes:
    in_header: links.html

Note: This solution may also open new tabs for hash (#) pointers/URLs. I have not tested this solution with such URLs.

Solution 14 - Html

I ran into this problem when trying to implement markdown using PHP.

Since the user generated links created with markdown need to open in a new tab but site links need to stay in tab I changed markdown to only generate links that open in a new tab. So not all links on the page link out, just the ones that use markdown.

In markdown I changed all the link output to be <a target='_blank' href="..."> which was easy enough using find/replace.

Solution 15 - Html

I do not agree that it's a better user experience to stay within one browser tab. If you want people to stay on your site, or come back to finish reading that article, send them off in a new tab.

Building on @davidmorrow's answer, throw this javascript into your site and turn just external links into links with target=_blank:

    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
      // Creating custom :external selector
      $.expr[':'].external = function(obj){
          return !obj.href.match(/^mailto\:/)
                  && (obj.hostname != location.hostname);
      };

      $(function(){
        // Add 'external' CSS class to all external links
        $('a:external').addClass('external');

        // turn target into target=_blank for elements w external class
        $(".external").attr('target','_blank');
        
      })

    </script>

Solution 16 - Html

Automated for external links only, using GNU sed & make

If one would like to do this systematically for all external links, CSS is no option. However, one could run the following sed command once the (X)HTML has been created from Markdown:

sed -i 's|href="http|target="_blank" href="http|g' index.html

This can be further automated by adding above sed command to a makefile. For details, see GNU make or see how I have done that on my website.

Solution 17 - Html

You can add any attributes using {[attr]="[prop]"}

For example [Google] (http://www.google.com){target="_blank"}

Solution 18 - Html

For completed alex answered (Dec 13 '10)

A more smart injection target could be done with this code :

/*
 * For all links in the current page...
 */
$(document.links).filter(function() {
    /*
     * ...keep them without `target` already setted...
     */
    return !this.target;
}).filter(function() {
    /*
     * ...and keep them are not on current domain...
     */
    return this.hostname !== window.location.hostname ||
        /*
         * ...or are not a web file (.pdf, .jpg, .png, .js, .mp4, etc.).
         */
        /\.(?!html?|php3?|aspx?)([a-z]{0,3}|[a-zt]{0,4})$/.test(this.pathname);
/*
 * For all link kept, add the `target="_blank"` attribute. 
 */
}).attr('target', '_blank');

You could change the regexp exceptions with adding more extension in (?!html?|php3?|aspx?) group construct (understand this regexp here: https://regex101.com/r/sE6gT9/3).

and for a without jQuery version, check code below:

var links = document.links;
for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
    if (!links[i].target) {
        if (
            links[i].hostname !== window.location.hostname || 
            /\.(?!html?)([a-z]{0,3}|[a-zt]{0,4})$/.test(links[i].pathname)
        ) {
            links[i].target = '_blank';
        } 
    }
}

Solution 19 - Html

If you just want to do this in a specific link, just use the inline attribute list syntax as others have answered, or just use HTML.

If you want to do this in all generated <a> tags, depends on your Markdown compiler, maybe you need an extension of it.

I am doing this for my blog these days, which is generated by pelican, which use Python-Markdown. And I found an extension for Python-Markdown Phuker/markdown_link_attr_modifier, it works well. Note that an old extension called newtab seems not work in Python-Markdown 3.x.

Solution 20 - Html

In Laravel I solved it this way:

$post->text= Str::replace('<a ', '<a target="_blank"', $post->text);

Not works for a specific link. Edit all links in the Markdown text. (In my case it's fine)

Solution 21 - Html

This works for me: [Page Link](your url here "(target|_blank)")

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	ma11hew28	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Html	Matchu	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Html	farnoy	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Html	alex	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Html	meduvigo	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Html	coatless	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Html	aholub	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Html	guya	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Html	Peter Danshov	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Html	moubi	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Html	MrPenguin Pablo	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Html	user5036455	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Html	midudev	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Html	Thomas	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Html	user3167223	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Html	Danny	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - Html	Serge Stroobandt	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 17 - Html	leonardli	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 18 - Html	Bruno J. S. Lesieur	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 19 - Html	Faka	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 20 - Html	WalterV	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 21 - Html	Jose Espin	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Can I create links with 'target="_blank"' in Markdown?

Html Problem Overview

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

Solution 2 - Html

Solution 3 - Html

Solution 4 - Html

Solution 5 - Html

Solution 6 - Html

Solution 7 - Html

Solution 8 - Html

Solution 9 - Html

Solution 10 - Html

Solution 11 - Html

Solution 12 - Html

Solution 13 - Html

Using Pandoc Lua Filter

Inject `<base target="_blank">` in Header

Solution 14 - Html

Solution 15 - Html

Solution 16 - Html

Automated for external links only, using GNU sed & make

Solution 17 - Html

Solution 18 - Html

Solution 19 - Html

Solution 20 - Html

Solution 21 - Html

How to paste yanked text into the Vim command line

How can I convert a std::string to int?

Attributions

Html Problem Overview

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

Solution 2 - Html

Solution 3 - Html

Solution 4 - Html

Solution 5 - Html

Solution 6 - Html

Solution 7 - Html

Solution 8 - Html

Solution 9 - Html

Solution 10 - Html

Solution 11 - Html

Solution 12 - Html

Solution 13 - Html

Using Pandoc Lua Filter

Inject <base target="_blank"> in Header

Solution 14 - Html

Solution 15 - Html

Solution 16 - Html

Automated for external links only, using GNU sed & make

Solution 17 - Html

Solution 18 - Html

Solution 19 - Html

Solution 20 - Html

Solution 21 - Html

How to paste yanked text into the Vim command line

How can I convert a std::string to int?

Attributions

Inject `<base target="_blank">` in Header