How can I make a roman numeral list in Markdown?

Question

How do I create a roman numeral list in Markdown?

Like this...

i) Higher per acre field of sugarcane.
ii) Higher sucrose content of sugarcane.
iii) Lower Labor cost.
iv) Longer crushing period.

Answer 1

Pandoc Supports Roman Numerals for Ordered Lists

The original Markdown doesn't support Roman numerals, and currently (as of version 0.28) neither does CommonMark. However, some Markdown flavors and processors do support them, either natively or with certain extensions enabled.

Pandoc allows you to use two spaces after a letter or Roman numeral to indicate such a list. For example:

I.  Foo 
    A.  Bar 
    B.  Baz 
II.  Quux

will render the following HTML:

<ol type="I">
<li>Foo
<ol type="A">
<li>Bar</li>
<li>Baz</li>
</ol></li>
<li>Quux</li>
</ol>

This specific example doesn't require CSS or non-default extensions, but does require that you render your markup with Pandoc rather than some other processor. If you're using anything else, your mileage will vary.

Answer 2

Roman numeral lists are not supported in pure Markdown.

You can use CSS to define a roman numeral list with lowercase letters, although it will look slightly different:

list-style-type:lower-roman;

Result:

  i.  Lorem ipsum  
 ii.  Dolor sit amet  
iii.  Foobar