Links to URLs containing parentheses

Question

How do I add a link to a URL containing parentheses () (or "round brackets" by heathens)?

For example:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa752574(VS.85).aspx

The parentheses around "VS.85" causes it to look like this:

Markdown:

[IHtmlDocument2 reference](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa752574(VS.85).aspx)

Output renders as

IHtmlDocument2 reference

Answer 1

There are many ways to format URLs in Markdown. Parentheses work better with some methods than others.

1. Bare             - http://example.com/test(1).html
2. Bare, encoded    - http://example.com/test%281%29.html
3. Delimited        - <http://example.com/test(1).html>
4. Hyperlink        - with <a href="http://example.com/test(1).html">parens</a>
5. Markdown Link #1 - with [parens][1]
6. Markdown Link #1 - with [parens at end][2]
7. Markdown Link #2 - with [parens](http://example.com/test(1).html)
8. Markdown Link #2 - with [parens at end](http://example.com/test(1))  

1. Bare - http://example.com/test(1).html
2. Bare, encoded - http://example.com/test%281%29.html
3. Delimited - http://example.com/test(1).html
4. Hyperlink - with parens
5. Markdown Link #1 - with parens
6. Markdown Link #1 - with parens at end
7. Markdown Link #2 - with parens
8. Markdown Link #2 - with parens at end

Note also that parenthetical sections in MSDN links are optional, so:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5471dc8s\(VS.80\).aspx

could be linked to, instead, as:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5471dc8s.aspx

See also The Problem With URLs for Jeff Atwood's blog post about coming up with a solution for Stack Overflow.

Other issues with URLs

Sometimes URLs can fail to link correctly because they contain disallowed characters. In these cases encode the characters using the % notation. Previously characters such as () [] ' and * were not allowed but the server-side Markdown renderer has been modified to accept them now. Currently the only (known) characters that aren't accepted are ones with accents, graves, diaeresis, etc. For example: é or ö, although if it's a Wikipedia link you can just use the unadorned character. (A suggestion to have these characters supported has been made on UserVoice.)

Answer 2

I ran into the same thing working on an IPython notebook. You can simply use URL encoding for:

• ( which is %28, and for
• ) which is %29.

Reference: HTML URL Encoding Reference (W3Schools)

Answer 3

Use the <a> notation instead of the [ ] notation.

e.g. <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa752574(VS.85).aspx">IHtmlDocument2 reference</a>

Answer 4

You can do it like this:

link to [IHtmlDocument2 reference][1]

   [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa752574(VS.85).aspx

For what it's worth, () are parentheses. Braces are {}.

Answer 5

FYI, if you're trying to do this in Octopress or Jeckyll, you'll see that some of these methods don't work.

You can use the delimiters inside the parens like this:

[My Link](<http://example.com/test(1)>)

Which looks like this:

My Link

Answer 6

One workaround is to use a service like TinyURL or Bitly to shorten the URL.