##### Scripta User Guide
For help getting started, see also the Scripta Cookbook. Remember to use the S option to "view source" in reading this document.

## Getting started

Content in Scripta is written in Asciidoc, a markup language. Notice how Asciidoc is formatted — with little marks before and after the words that are to be made italic or bold. The marks help to give your text structure and visual form. We will give just a few examples in this section to get you started. You can write a great deal of text with just a few bits of markup. You can learn more as you need it.

You wrote italic and bold text using inline formatting. Here is one more example — what you might need to explain computer code: `json = { 'fred' ⇒ 'abc5176' }`.

### Lists

Let’s make a list:

Groceries
1. Bacon

2. Butter

3. Eggs

4. Cholesterol medicine

Numbered items begin with a period at the left margin, followed by a space, followed by the item. The heading, which is optional, has the form period followed immediately by the text of the heading. For an itemized list, use asterisks instead of periods. For lists that have sublists, use double periods or double asterisks Etc. It is all very logical.

Let’s link to this article: The Spoon and the Wine Bottle. Just paste in the URL and follow it by the link text you want enclosed in brackets.

### Images

To upload an image, you need to be in the editor. Click on the icon, fill out the form, choose the image, and press Upload. When you are brought back to your document, you will notice a blue button to the right of the icon with text something like insert 1272. The number 1272 is the ID number assigned to your image. Put your cursor where you want the image to be and click on the blue button. It will insert the link for the image.

As the image on the right shows, there are many ways of formatting an image. Try `float=left`, `align=center`, For more options, see XX. The same style of link can be used for videos and audios — whether uploaded into scripta, linked to youtube or vimeo, etc. See XXX.

### Mathematics

You can do ninety percent of your writing with just a few markup codes. But when you need something more sophisticated, the tools are there for you. One of these is LaTeX, which you can use for in-line formulas like $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$ or for displayed formulas like $\int_{-\infty}^\infty e^{-x^2/2} = \sqrt{2\pi}$

Theorem 1.
There are infinitely many primes.
Theorem 2.
The series $\sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n}$ diverges

Notice the LaTeX-like environments. Documents written in Scripta can in fact be exported to LaTeX. Just use the tool in the pop-up toolbar in the editor:

### Chemistry

Chemistry, like mathematics, has its own symbology. There are in-line markup tools for chemical formulas and reactions, e.g., $\ce{ C12H22O11 }$. More elaborate structural formulae can be handled as images, just as we did with the butterfly.

### Code

``````// Simple web server
var http = require('http');

var server = http.createServer(function (request, response) {
response.end("Hello World\n");
});

server.listen(8000);
console.log("Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8000/")``````

You may want to look at the code example in single column mode — the lines are a bit long for the two-column modes.

### Wrapping up

Notice that how we did section and subsection headings — two equal signs, a space, and then the text for section headings. Three equal signs for subsubsections, etc.

 Warning Some times your text comes out looking funny, as in the next paragraph. That is because you did not start our paragraph at the left margin. This is a feature, not a bug. It is used when you need to preserve formatting exactly.
``` This is a test.
I repeat. It
is
a test
of what I said
above!```