Markdown Tutorial

Overview #

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. It’s designed to be easy to write and read in a plain-text editor and be easily rendered into structurally valid HTML (or XHTML). Markdown was originally created by John Bruber and Aaron Swartz as a markup language that’s appealing to humans.

Because of it’s utility Markdown is a popular markup language with broad support. You can configure Slack to use Markdown syntax. GitHub and GitLab use their own flavor of Markdown. Many common CMS and web-development frameworks include support or plugins for rendering Markdown. Notable examples include Jekyll and Hugo, static site generators.

Official docs

Basics #

In order to get started writing in Markdown you need a text editor that supports syntax highlighting. Many plain-text editors include native support for Markdown syntax highlighting. Common editors that include support for *.md which you might use are Vim, Emacs, Vscode, Sublime, Notepad++ to name a few. Install your favorite text editor and create a file with the *.md extension to start writing in Markdown.

Headings #

Headings are created with the use of # characters. To create a heading of levels 1-6 prefix the corresponding number of # characters to the beginning of the header.

# Header 1
## Header 2
### Header 3
#### Header 4
##### Header 5
###### Header 6

If you’re familiar with HTML markup, these render to header elements , , … etc.

Bold & Italic #

Bold and italics (different degrees of emphasis) can be denoted by wrapping a string of text in either one or two asterisks * or underscores _. For example:

*Italicized*
_Italicized_

**Bold**
__Bold__

Blockquote #

Much like plain-text email, you can create a blockquote with the right carrot >.

> Blockquote

Lists #

Ordered lists #

Ordered lists are just a numbered list.

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item

Unordered lists #

Unordered lists are denoted by either a *, + or -. This author prefers * but use what you prefer, just try to be consistent. It’s considered bad style to mix it up too much.

- First item
- Second item
- Third item

+ First item
+ Second item
+ Third item

* First item
* Second item
* Third item

Nested lists #

You can create lists within lists. It’s possible to mix ordered and unordered lists this way too.

1. First item
	* Unordered sub-item 1
	* Unordered sub-item 2
2. Second item
	1. Ordered sub-item 1
	2. Ordered sub-item 2

* First item
	1. Ordered sub-item 1
	2. Ordered sub-item 2
* Second item
	+ Unordered sub-item 
	+ Unordered sub-item

Code #

You can denote inline code with ‘`’

`inline code`

And you can denote code blocks with ‘```’

Some block of Code goes here

Horizontal line #

Horizontal lines are denoted with ---

Text here
---
Other text

Links #

Links (or _anchors) can be created like this:

[link](http://www.example.com)

Images #

Images can be denoted like so:

![alt text](image.jpg)

Often the image file is included in the same directory as the *.md file