Q:

ruby on rails; ERB templates - how to fomat content in file without html tags but instead using something like markdown

when I'm making an erb template for views, what is easiest way to format content within the views?
say i'm putting one sentence like "This is 5x greater than ..." in the view.
I don't want to put Strong tag to bold it everytime I want to bold something in the template.
Is there something like markdown I can do directly within the view file? 
I was using HAML, and there was a way using markdown gem but it seems it doesn't work for erb. 

A:

HAML does offer the shortcut * asterisks * for bolding something, but if you have to use ERB, I think you're stuck with the <strong> tags. If you're looking for faster markup, HAML's probably the way to go (if you have control over that decision). 

