GitHub Pages drops support for RDiscount, Redcarpet, and RedCloth (Textile) markup engines

Back in February, we announced, that GitHub Pages would be dropping support for the RDiscount, Redcarpet, and RedCloth (Textile) markup engines, and today we’re making it official.

For the vast majority of users, making the switch should be easy, as kramdown supports all of RDiscount and Redcarpet’s most popular features. If you’re making the transition from Textile, follow these instructions to upgrade your site to Markdown.

In standardizing on a single Markdown engine, we’re able to simplify and improve the publishing experience, by removing much of the confusion and complexity associated with the differences between various markdown interpretations, bringing things more closely in line with what you’d expect from Markdown rendering on GitHub.com. See last month’s blog post on the subject, for more context behind our decision.

If you’re still using RDiscount, Redcarpet, or RedCloth, next time you push to your GitHub Pages site, you will receive an email from us with instructions on how to upgrade. We highly recommend you test building your site locally with kramdown prior to pushing. If you’re a GitHub Enterprise user, this change will affect GitHub Enterprise versions 2.7 and later.

In most cases, upgrading to kramdown should be a matter of updating your site’s configuration. If in the off chance you do run into any trouble, please get in touch with us, or if you have questions about what this change means for your GitHub Enterprise appliance, please contact GitHub Enterprise support. We’re here to help.