Feature Request: Markdown for centered text

[ghost]

Fiction publishers have standard manuscript formats that include text centered on a page. While centered text, arguably, is a formatting instruction that could go against markdown philosophy, there are some precedents for its inclusion in markdown:

• http://www.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/Code/discount/
• https://simplpost.com/markdown.html
• http://tedwise.com/markdown/
• http://stackoverflow.com/a/15370539/59087
• http://cl.ly/NpvK
• https://help.madmimi.com/how-do-i-center-or-justify-my-text/
• https://ca.godaddy.com/help/centering-or-justifying-text-15824

There are a number of elements that published manuscripts must have centered:

• Scene separators (i.e., centered hashmarks)
• Title
• Author byline
• Story ending demarcation (i.e., THE END) (see also scriptwriting)

Additionally, bloggers desire to center images, but have no easy option using markdown. (They resort to embedding HTML [<div class="align-center">Centered text</div>] in the markdown, which defeats the purpose of separating content from presentation--thereby decreasing the text readability, which goes against MD philosophy.)

I'd like to propose an option to suggest that an item be centered, regardless of output format:

-> Centered Text <-

There is an alternative form, but it strikes me as more difficult to parse:

> Centered Text <

Output Formats

HTML:

<div class="align-center">Centered Text</div>

ConTeXt:

\startalignment[middle]Centered Text\stopalignment

DOCX:

<w:p>
  <w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val="Normal"/><w:jc w:val="center"/><w:rPr></w:rPr></w:pPr>
  <w:r><w:rPr></w:rPr><w:t>Centered Text</w:t></w:r>
</w:p>

[jgm]

Dup of #719
See also pandoc-discuss threads on this topic, from a while back.