for this I thinnk you sould use extra render.
{{text = "`` here is my code ``:pre_with_code"}} {{=MARKMIN(text, extra={"pre_with_code": lambda text: "<pre><code>{0}</code></pre>".format(text)})}} Tested on shell In [4]: text = "`` here is my code ``:pre_with_code" In [5]: print MARKMIN(text, extra={"pre_with_code": lambda text: "<pre><code>{0}</code></pre>".format(text)}) <pre><code> here is my code </code></pre> --