<p dir="auto">Currently, when exporting markdown to html, all html special characters are escaped:</p>
<div class="highlight highlight-source-julia notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" dir="auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="using Markdown
a = Markdown.parse(&quot;This is *important* text with &lt;i&gt;html&lt;/i&gt; in it&quot;);
# parsed as
Markdown.Paragraph(Any[&quot;This is &quot;, Markdown.Italic(Any[&quot;important&quot;]), &quot; text with &lt;i&gt;html&lt;/i&gt; in it&quot;])
# then exporting to html
Markdown.html(a)
# output below
&quot;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;em&gt;important&lt;/em&gt; text with &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;html&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; in it&lt;/p&gt;\n&quot;"><pre class="notranslate"><span class="pl-k">using</span> Markdown
a <span class="pl-k">=</span> Markdown<span class="pl-k">.</span><span class="pl-c1">parse</span>(<span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>This is *important* text with &lt;i&gt;html&lt;/i&gt; in it<span class="pl-pds">"</span></span>);
<span class="pl-c"><span class="pl-c">#</span> parsed as</span>
Markdown<span class="pl-k">.</span><span class="pl-c1">Paragraph</span>(Any[<span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>This is <span class="pl-pds">"</span></span>, Markdown<span class="pl-k">.</span><span class="pl-c1">Italic</span>(Any[<span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>important<span class="pl-pds">"</span></span>]), <span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span> text with &lt;i&gt;html&lt;/i&gt; in it<span class="pl-pds">"</span></span>])
<span class="pl-c"><span class="pl-c">#</span> then exporting to html</span>
Markdown<span class="pl-k">.</span><span class="pl-c1">html</span>(a)
<span class="pl-c"><span class="pl-c">#</span> output below</span>
<span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">"</span>&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;em&gt;important&lt;/em&gt; text with &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;html&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; in it&lt;/p&gt;<span class="pl-cce">\n</span><span class="pl-pds">"</span></span></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">and there is no way of getting such an output:</p>
<div class="highlight highlight-text-html-basic notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" dir="auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;em&gt;important&lt;/em&gt; text with &lt;i&gt;html&lt;/i&gt; in it&lt;/p&gt;"><pre class="notranslate"><span class="pl-kos">&lt;</span><span class="pl-ent">p</span><span class="pl-kos">&gt;</span>This is <span class="pl-kos">&lt;</span><span class="pl-ent">em</span><span class="pl-kos">&gt;</span>important<span class="pl-kos">&lt;/</span><span class="pl-ent">em</span><span class="pl-kos">&gt;</span> text with <span class="pl-kos">&lt;</span><span class="pl-ent">i</span><span class="pl-kos">&gt;</span>html<span class="pl-kos">&lt;/</span><span class="pl-ent">i</span><span class="pl-kos">&gt;</span> in it<span class="pl-kos">&lt;/</span><span class="pl-ent">p</span><span class="pl-kos">&gt;</span></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">So, this issue is a feature request.</p>
<p dir="auto">It could even be the default behavior for all markdown blocks except code block.</p>
<p dir="auto">(similar to <a class="issue-link js-issue-link" data-error-text="Failed to load title" data-id="534434788" data-permission-text="Title is private" data-url="https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/34042" data-hovercard-type="issue" data-hovercard-url="/JuliaLang/julia/issues/34042/hovercard" href="https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/34042">#34042</a>)</p>
<p dir="auto">I noticed <code class="notranslate">Markdown.parse</code> doesn't parse HTML tags properly while writing docs with <code class="notranslate">Documenter.jl</code> (xref: <a class="issue-link js-issue-link" data-error-text="Failed to load title" data-id="169602768" data-permission-text="Title is private" data-url="https://github.com/JuliaDocs/Documenter.jl/issues/176" data-hovercard-type="issue" data-hovercard-url="/JuliaDocs/Documenter.jl/issues/176/hovercard" href="https://github.com/JuliaDocs/Documenter.jl/issues/176">JuliaDocs/Documenter.jl#176</a>).</p>
<p dir="auto">Most Markdown parsers support this feature, so I think <code class="notranslate">Base.Markdown</code> should do as well.</p>
<p dir="auto">For example, two consecutive hyphens are recognized as an em dash as follows:</p>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="julia&gt; Markdown.parse(&quot;&lt;!-- comment --&gt;&quot;)
  &lt;!– comment –&gt;
"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">julia&gt; Markdown.parse("&lt;!-- comment --&gt;")
  &lt;!– comment –&gt;

</code></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">CC: <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/MichaelHatherly/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/MichaelHatherly">@MichaelHatherly</a></p>
<hr>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="julia&gt; versioninfo()
Julia Version 0.5.0-rc1+0
Commit cede539* (2016-08-04 08:48 UTC)
Platform Info:
  System: Darwin (x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0)
  CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4288U CPU @ 2.60GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  BLAS: libopenblas (USE64BITINT DYNAMIC_ARCH NO_AFFINITY Haswell)
  LAPACK: libopenblas64_
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-3.7.1 (ORCJIT, haswell)
"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">julia&gt; versioninfo()
Julia Version 0.5.0-rc1+0
Commit cede539* (2016-08-04 08:48 UTC)
Platform Info:
  System: Darwin (x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0)
  CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4288U CPU @ 2.60GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  BLAS: libopenblas (USE64BITINT DYNAMIC_ARCH NO_AFFINITY Haswell)
  LAPACK: libopenblas64_
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-3.7.1 (ORCJIT, haswell)

</code></pre></div>