Sometimes you really need a span

A Python-Markdown extension that enables inline <span> elements with attribute lists:

[content]{#id .class key="value"}

• Wraps inline content in <span> elements with appended attributes
• Fully compatible with Python-Markdown base and extended syntax, including:
  • Inline links
  • Reference links
  • Wikilinks
• Supports nested spans, links, and nesting inside links
• Renders correctly HTML elements inside attributes (e.g., for MkDocs Material tooltips)
• No parsing overhead — delegates attribute handling to the attr_list extension

$ pip install markdown-span-attr

Enable alongside attr_list in Python:

import markdown
md = markdown.Markdown(extensions=['attr_list', 'span_attr'])

Or in mkdocs.yml:

markdown_extensions:
  - attr_list
  - span_attr

[content]{#id .class key="value"}

Renders as:

<span class="class" id="id" key="value">content</span>

See the official extension for attribute lists syntax.

[horace]: #
[[Horace][horace]{.p} is [daring](#quint1){.cit}]{#s1}  # nested reference/inline links
[[audax]{.foreign} [daring]]{#s2}                       # nested spans and unescaped brackets
[[[Poets]] daring in [[words]]{title="Words"}]{#s3}     # wikilinks

Renders as:

<span id="s1"><a class="p" href="#">Horace</a> is <a class="cit" href="#quint1">daring</a></span>
<span id="s2"><span class="foreign">audax</span> [daring]</span>
<span id="s3"><a class="wikilink" href="/Poets/">Poets</a> daring in <a class="wikilink" href="/words/" title="Words">words</a></span>

[transilire lineas impune]{: .q title="Varro, <em>De Lingua Latina</em> IX 5" }

Renders as:

<span class="q" title="Varro, <em>De Lingua Latina</em> IX 5">transilire lineas impune</span>

Many would say that supporting arbitrary <span> elements in Markdown syntax goes against Markdown philosophy, and perhaps it is true. But sometimes you really need a readable span in Markdown, and decadence is inescapable, anyway. So at least be safe with span_attr not to break compatibility with other extensions.

The extension uses a greedy-safe regular expression to match [content]{: attr-list} spans, supporting nesting while avoiding premature matches:

\[([^\[\]]*|(?:[^\[\]]*\[[^\[\]]*\](?!\{)[^\[\]]*)*)\](?=\{\:?[ ]*([^\}\n ][^\n]*)[ ]*\})

What it does:

• Matches the innermost span first to support nesting (no other attribute span is allowed inside).
• Allows only content with none or balanced square brackets.
• Uses a lookahead to ensure a valid {} attribute list follows.

It matches only [content], while attribute parsing is delegated to attr_list.

The processor is registered with priority 72. This is chosen to:

• Run after wikilinks (75), so links are parsed before wrapping them in spans.
• Run before attr_list (8), so <span> elements are inserted before attr_list decorates them.

This placement ensures the extension is compatible with link handling and HTML escaping.

*: Extension