Markua File Format (.markua)

A MARKUA file holds Markua, Leanpub's Markdown dialect for writing books and courses, adding parts, chapters, asides, quizzes and other publishing structure that plain Markdown has no syntax for.

.markuaDocuments

Markua at a glance#

Full name	Markua book markup
File extension	.markua
Category	Documents
Developer	Peter Armstrong (Leanpub)
Compression	Uncompressed
Specification	Markua Manual
FileFlip support	FileFlip writes this format but cannot open one

What a .markua file can hold#

These are the things a Markua file either supports or does not, and they are what decides whether a conversion keeps everything or quietly drops something.

Selectable text	Yes
Human readable	Yes

Strengths and limitations of Markua#

What Markua does well

Adds real book structure, front matter, parts, chapters and appendices, that Markdown has no notion of
Asides, blurbs, quizzes and exercises give book and course authors block types they'd otherwise have to fake with blockquotes
Leanpub compiles the same Markua source straight to EPUB, PDF and MOBI without a separate layout step

Where Markua falls short

Works as a Leanpub authoring format specifically; other publishing tools don't have a Markua parser
Documentation exists but there's no independent specification or conformance test suite the way Markdown got with CommonMark
An existing Markua manuscript has to stay inside Leanpub's own tooling to be built, since most converters can write Markua but not read it back

Write in Markua when the book or course is being authored and published on Leanpub.

Convert a manuscript to Markua when importing it into Leanpub from another format, since Leanpub's build pipeline is built around it.

How to open a .markua file#

A .markua file opens in the programs below, grouped by the platform you are on.

Platform	Programs that open it
Windows	VS Code, Notepad++
macOS	VS Code, TextEdit
Linux	VS Code, vim
Web	Leanpub

Markua questions people ask#

What is a Markua file used for?

A Markua file holds the source of a book or course written for Leanpub, using Markua, the publishing platform's own Markdown dialect. Leanpub builds the finished EPUB, PDF and MOBI editions directly from this source.

Is Markua the same as Markdown?

No. Markua is a separate dialect that starts from Markdown's syntax and adds the structure a book needs, parts, chapters, asides, figures with captions, that plain Markdown has no way to express. A Markua file typically fails or renders incorrectly in a tool that only understands standard Markdown.

Can I open a Markua file outside Leanpub?

A Markua file is plain text, so any text editor opens it, but nothing outside Leanpub's own build pipeline compiles the book-specific structure, parts, chapters, asides, quizzes, into a finished book. Most conversion tools that support Markua can write it as an output format but can't read an existing Markua file back in.

Converting Markua files#

FileFlip cannot open a .markua file, so there is nothing to convert it into here. It appears on the site as something other formats can be converted to.

Every conversion runs inside your browser. The file is read from your disk, the work happens on your own machine, and nothing is uploaded. How FileFlip works names the engine behind each family and how to verify that for yourself.