Markdown: continue numbered list

As an extension to existing answers. For those trying to continue a numbered list after something other than a code block. For example a second paragraph. Just indent the second paragraph by at least 1 space.

Markdown:

1. one
2. two

 three
3. four

Output:

1. one

2. two

   three

3. four

Notice how in Macmade's solution, you can see an extra line of code above the "Code block".

Here are two better solutions:

1. Indent the code block by an extra 4 spaces (so usually 8, in this nested list example, 12). This will put the code in a <pre> element. On SO, you can even specify syntax highlight with a
   <!-- language: lang-js --> indented by 4 spaces (+1 here due to the nested list).

   1. item 1

   2. item 2

      Code.block('JavaScript', maybe)?
      

   3. item 3

2. Or, just put the Code block within backticks and indent by 4 spaces (here, 1 extra because of the nested list). You'll get a regular indented text paragraph, with a <code> element inside it. This one you can't syntax-highlight:

   1. item 1

   2. item 2

      Code block

   3. item 3

Note: you can click "edit" on this answer to see the underlying Markdown code. No need to save ;)

Macmade's solution doesn't work for me anymore on my Jekyll instance on Github Pages anymore but I found this solution on an issue for the kramdown github repo. For OP's example it would look like this:

1. item 1
2. item 2

```
Code block
```

{:start="3"}
3. item 3

Solved my issues handily.

If you use tab to indent the code block it will shape the entire block into one line. To avoid this you need to use html ordered list.

1. item 1
2. item 2

Code block

<ol start="3">
  <li>item 3</li>
  <li>item 4</li>
</ol>

If you happen to be using the Ruby gem redcarpet to render Markdown, you may still have this problem.

You can escape the numbering, and redcarpet will happily ignore any special meaning:

1\. Some heading

text text
text text

text text

2\. Some other heading

blah blah

more blah blah

When you indent with 4 spaces, you never have to increment your numbers from "1." to "2." to "3."...

Markdown:

1. item 1
1. item 2

    ```
    Code block
    ```
1. item 3

Produces this output:

1. item 1
2. item 2

    ```
    Code block
    ```
3. item 3

In CommonMark Spec has a rules about this

1. foo
2. bar
3) baz

Generate this HTML

<ol>
<li>foo</li>
<li>bar</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>baz</li>
</ol>

Source:

<span>1.</span> item 1<br/>
<span>2.</span> item 2
```
Code block
```
<span>3.</span> item 3

Result:

1. item 1
2. item 2

Code block

3. item 3

If you don't want the lines in between the list items to be indented, like user Mars mentioned in his comment, you can use pandoc's example_lists feature. From their docs:

(@)  My first example will be numbered (1).
(@)  My second example will be numbered (2).

Explanation of examples.

(@)  My third example will be numbered (3).

You can try to add a backslash (\) before the period (1\. item 1), which disables the list auto-numbering. Note: this will remove left side indentation.

1. item 1

def call_of_duty()
   return press_f()

3. item 3

print("fus ro dah")

7. item 7

print("Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru")

10. item 10

From the link source:

3\. Put on shoes
2\. Open door
1\. Step outside

renders

3. Put on shoes
2. Open door
1. Step outside

I solved this problem on Github separating the indented sub-block with a newline, for instance, you write the item 1, then hit enter twice (like if it was a new paragraph), indent the block and write what you want (a block of code, text, etc). More information on Markdown lists and Markdown line breaks.

Example:

1. item one

2. item two

   this block acts as a new paragraph, above there is a blank line

3. item three

   some other code

4. item four

2024: Explicitly restart the list at the number you want. Markdown allows you to use any number and it will auto-increment. I nearly always use 1. for every item in a numbered list and let markdown take care of things, makes it really easy to change the order.

Markdown

1. item 1
1. item 2

```
Code block
```

3. item 3
1. item 4

Output

1. item 1
2. item 2

Code block

3. item 3
4. item 4

If you want to have text aligned to preceding list item but avoid having "big" line break, use two spaces at the end of a list item and indent the text with some spaces.

Source: (dots are spaces ;-) of course)

1.·item1··
····This is some text
2.item2

Result:

1. item1
   This is some text
2. item2

Note that there are also a number of extensions available that will fix this behaviour for specific contexts of Markdown use.

For example, sane_lists extension of python-markdown (used in mkdocs, for example), will recognize numbers used in Markdown lists. You just need to enable this extension markdown.markdown(some_text, extensions=['sane_lists'])

Put the list numbers in parentheses instead of followed by a period.

(1) item 1
(2) item 2 code block (3) item 3

My solution is very simple: don't use the dot space.

e.g.

1.apple

2.banana

3.cherry

4.drone

which produces:

1.apple

2.banana

3.cherry

4.drone