Gemtext or Gemini syntax with its HTML equivalents

Here is a Gemtext cheatsheet, a summary of the syntax used to build sites for the Gemini protocol. You can take it as a quick guide for people who know HTML and want to learn Gemtext.

If you do not know the protocol, you can read a brief introduction to Gemini.

Important notes

Files must have a .gmi extension and the index must be named index.gmi.
Do not break paragraphs with manual line breaks, the browser will take care of wrapping them to the screen width. Each line is considered a paragraph.
Blank lines are respected.

Paragraphs

Each line is a paragraph.

Hello Gemini!

Hyperlinks

Equivalent to <a>. It starts with => followed by the URL and the text that represents the hyperlink.

=> domain.com Text that represents the hyperlink

Images

There is no equivalent to <img>. However, any hyperlink pointing to an image can be displayed inline when clicked. You must start the line with => followed by the image URL and the text that represents the image.

=> image.jpg Click to view

Some browsers display the image inline, others open it on a separate page and others download it.

Headers

Same as working with Markdown.

# Main header, similar to <h1>

## Sub-header, similar to <h2>

### Sub-subheader, similar to <h3>

Lists

It would be equivalent to <ul> with its <li>. The syntax is the same as Markdown.

* Mercury
* Gemini
* Apollo

Quote

It could be similar to <q> or <blockquote>, except that it would not have line breaks. It starts with >.

> I contend that text-based websites should not exceed in size the major works of Russian literature.

Preformatted

Equivalent to <pre>. It must be between an opening and closing ```. Widely used for ASCII art or to display code.


                                  ++#+%%@%===+
                                *#@@@@@@@@@@%@@@#*
                              #@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@%#*+
                             +@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@%+
                            =#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@%#
                            +@@@@@@@@@%%%%@@@@@@@@@@@@%%+
                            #@@@**==++====*##%@@@@@@@@%#+
                            =%@*..........:==+**#%@@@@%%+
                            =%@* .  .......:--==+#@@@@##
                             *@*:-::......:--==--*@@@%#+
                              #+++#%#-..-#%%%%%*.-@@%#*+
                              +-.-=++- .=##*%%#+: #*=++-
                               - ....  .-==---==..*===-
                               :       :=+=:::-: :-=::
                               -   ....:===::--....::-
                                : :*%%%%@%*#==- ..-
                                +:%*-:-=##%@%++: .
                                 *%-::-=+*#@@%#-
                                 *%*#%%%%%@@@#- :
                                :-%%%%%%@@@@#--.:
                                 :.=#%@@%%#+++

And that is all. With these elements you can build a website on Gemini. If you want to learn more, you can read the Gemini specification.