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Formatting Bug Reports

How to use Markdown to make your reports more comprehensible and appealing

Markus avatar
Written by Markus
Updated over 5 years ago

Formatting your reports can sometimes help readers identify important bits more quickly. Especially when you submit usability reports, e.g. when answering multiple questions in a survey, readers can easily differentiate between questions and answers as well as headlines when your report is formatted.

Our report forms support Markdown – a markup language – that lets you format your text with simple syntax. Below, we list Markdown syntax that is most useful to document bugs on our platform.


Bold text

To add emphasis to important words or phrases, make it bold. Simply add two asterisks before and after the important bit.

Example

The product cannot be added to the cart. This problem affects any product in the webshop. **No products can be purchased.**

Result

The product cannot be added to the cart. This problem affects any product in the webshop. No products can be purchased.


Italic text

Italicizing button labels or link names in your steps can make them more understandable than apostrophes or plain text. To do so, add single asterisks or underscores before and after the part that you want to make italic.

Example

Step 3: Click on the button *Add to Cart*.
Step 4: Go to the cart via _Your Shopping Cart_ in the header navigation.

Result

Step 3: Click on the button Add to Cart.
Step 4: Go to the cart via Your Shopping Cart in the header navigation.


Lists

You can use bullet points to list equally ranking information, so that the structure and readability of your information is enhanced.

Example

- The user gets redirected back to the shopping cart.
- The shopping cart is suddenly empty; items have been removed.
- The layout of the shopping cart page is broken.

Result


Horizontal rules

Horizontal rules help separate different pieces of information from each other. For example, when you are asked to provide the credentials you used on the customer's website, you can add them below a horizontal rule in your expected result. To add one, add a newline and another line with three dashes, asterisks, or underscores.

Example

[...] Therefore, the checkout cannot be completed.

---
User name: tester12345
Password: 112233

Result


Headlines

When you submit usability suggestions and have to subdivide information, introducing headlines is the solution. Add hashtag signs (#) in front of your caption to enlarge it; the more hashtags you use, the smaller the headline font will become. Since using # and ## will produce large headlines, we recommend using three or more hashtags in reports on our platform.

Example

### Survey
##### Question 1: Name three things that you liked most about the product.
[Answer question 1]

##### Question 2: Which prototype website do you find more intuitive? Justify your answer!
[Answer question 2]

Result


More information

More syntax and examples can be found on the Internet, e.g. in this Markdown Guide. Some items don't work or are not suitable to be used in our bug form.

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