Once you get the hang of Markdown, it’s an incredibly powerful writing tool which will allow you to write rich content for the web far faster than almost any other method. To get to that point, however, there’s a little bit of a learning curve. We thought we’d put together an all inclusive guide to make that curve a little bit shorter, and potentially teach you a few super-user tricks to Markdown that you might not have known.

1. Markdown Guide Pdf
2. R Markdown Tutorial
3. Discord Markdown Guide

What is Markdown?

• Welcome to markdown-guide’s documentation! Edit on GitHub Markdown is a lightweight markup language, originally created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz allowing people “to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).
• The first official book authored by the core R Markdown developers that provides a comprehensive and accurate reference to the R Markdown ecosystem. With R Markdown, you can easily create reproducible data analysis reports, presentations, dashboards, interactive applications, books, dissertations, websites, and journal articles, while enjoying the simplicity of Markdown and the great power of.

Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax for writers. It allows you to quickly write structured content for the web, and have it seamlessly converted to clean, structured HTML.

Back in 2004, Apple pundit John Gruber came up with the idea after becoming frustrated by writing long, laborious HTML tags to properly format his content. He devised a simple writing system which would make web based documents both easier to write, and easier to read in their raw state.

Markdown Style Guide for about.GitLab.com This website was generated by Middleman, a blog-aware Static Site Generator (SSG) widely used by web developers. Markup language is part of the structure of any SSG. It is a system to write documents making them somehow syntactically distinguishable from text.

Here’s a quick example of Markdown in action:

becomes

The quick brown fox, jumped over the lazy dog.

With just a couple of extra characters, Markdown makes rich document formatting quick and beautiful.

Why do Writers Love Markdown so Much?

“Is that it?” - I hear you ask - “I could just click on a few formatting buttons in most editors and achieve the same thing!”

Very true! But we’re only just getting started. The range of formatting tools has come a very long way since Markdown’s inception in 2004, so you’d be forgiven for wondering what advantages it holds over, say, the “Bold” button in Microsoft Word.

While most novice users do indeed find buttons a bit easier to use, advanced writers often swear by Markdown and nothing else. Why? The biggest reason is writing flow.

Using a traditional writing user interface you have to pause your writing every few minutes (or sometimes seconds) and reach for the mouse in order to click, highlight, click a formatting button, and then click back to where you left off in order to continue. This process creates a tiresome, disjointed experience when all you want to do is get the words out of your head and onto the screen.

Markdown allows you to keep your fingers firmly planted on the keyboard as you apply formatting on the fly. In short: You never have to stop typing or think about anything else in order to apply your styles.

It might seem like a small detail, but it can have a really big effect. Once you start writing in Markdown, it’s really hard to back to the click-fest of the past.

Basic Markdown Formatting

Ok! You’re sold. So how does this work? Let’s dive in:

Markdown Guide Pdf

Markdown was designed with the explicit intention to be easily readable by humans. You should find that most of the syntax is pretty simple and intuitive.

Here are the elements you’ll use most often:

Headings

Headings in Markdown are any line which is prefixed with a # symbol. The number of hashes indicates the level of the heading. One hash is converted to an h1, two hashes to an h2 and so on. There are a total of 6 levels which you can make use of - but for most writing, you’ll rarely ever need more than 3.

Text

If you want to emphasise a word a little bit, wrap it in asterisks. For something that needs more emphasis: double asterisks. If you really want to drive the point home, use triple asterisks. If you prefer, you can also use underscores - they’re completely interchangeable.

To add a link: wrap the text which you want to be linked in square brackets, followed by the URL to be linked to in parenthesis. An easy way to remember this one is to think of it like turning a word into a button. [button] and (place to go when the button is clicked) combine to form a link.

Images

Markdown images have exactly the same formatting as a link, except they’re prefixed with a !. This time, the text in brackets is the alt text - or the descriptive text for the image.

In most Markdown editors, you don’t have to write this code out. They will provide a tool to allow you to upload an image and insert this code automatically. After that, it will appear in your document.

Lists are a formatting nightmare in HTML, but Markdown lists are incredibly easy to manage. For a bullet list, just prefix each like with a * - or - or + and they will be converted to dots. You can also create nested lists; just indent a line with 4 spaces and it will be nested under the line above.

• Milk

• Bread

  • Wholegrain
• Butter

For numbered lists, do exactly the same thing—but use numbers!

Quotes

When you want to add a quote in Markdown, it’s exactly the same as the formatting which you may already be familiar with from your email app of choice when you reply to someone.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Prefixing the line with a > converts it into a block-quote.

How can I remember all the Markdown syntax?!

It seems a little daunting at first, but you might be surprised how naturally it comes to you after a couple of posts written in Markdown. Most good Markdown editors come with a built-in cheat sheet to make it a little easier to learn.

Intermediate Markdown Formatting

So you’ve got the Markdown basics nailed and you want to move on to bigger and better things? Excellent. There’s much more we can do.

Horizontal Rules

Want to throw-down a quick divider in your article to denote a visual separation between different sections of text? No problem. 3 dashes produce:

A sleek <hr> element.

Code Snippets

If you’re a technical writer, you may want to use example snippets of code to teach your readers a particular syntax (like I’m doing, with this very blog post). Using a single back-tick around a word in a sentence, you can show a quick code snippet.

Indenting by 4 spaces will turn an entire paragraph into a code-block.

Reference Lists & Titles

If you prefer to use reference lists for your attribution, Markdown can handle this, too. In the above example, all of the links are kept separate in Markdown (so it’s easy to read even in its raw format), and then inserted directly as normal links when converted to HTML.

The quick brown fox, jumped over the lazy dog.

You’ll also notice that we’ve added a title attribute to the links by adding a 'word' in quote marks just after the URL. Anywhere you use a URL, you can follow it with a 'title in quotation marks' to generate a title attribute.

Escaping

What if you literally want to type *literally* - without it appearing in italics? Escaping Markdown characters with a back-slash allows you to use any characters which might be getting accidentally converted into HTML.

Embedding HTML

Possibly the coolest feature of Markdown is that it also just supports plain old HTML. If you find yourself stuck and unable to do what you want in Markdown - you can simply write in regular HTML and it will work just fine.

So you can drop in any HTML, sharing button, JavaScript snippet or iFrame you like and it will work on the page just as normal.

Advanced Markdown

Ok, you want the big guns. Every example so far has been vanilla, normal Markdown. Those code snippets will work absolutely anywhere which supports Markdown syntax.

Now we’re going to look at some syntax which is not standard to native Markdown. They’re extensions of the language.

Automatic Links

Markdown Footnotes

The quick brown fox¹ jumped over the lazy dog².

Syntax Highlighting

Converting HTML to Markdown

If you’re just getting into Markdown and you’ve found yourself with a massive back-log of old files which are written in HTML, you might want to convert them to Markdown to make them easier to work with in future.

Here’s a handy tool by Dom Christie which lets you do exactly that.

What to do next

After just a couple of hours with Markdown, we’re certain that your fingers will be flying across the keys as you pen your latest and greatest post.

Practice these steps to become a pro:

1. Start with writing your first Markdown document and get a feel for the basics. It comes more quickly than you might think!
2. Use HTML whenever you want advanced formatting, having this power available to you means you can really do (almost) anything.

Footnotes

When we read texts – whether online, in a newspaper or a printed book – we expect a certain format. Particularly important words are set in bold, a heading stands out from the rest of the test, and a structured list makes the text clearer. We consider this formatting to be obvious – and when we write a text on the PC ourselves, we can usually do so without any problems: from adjusting the font size and adding bullet points to making words bold. Any word processing program offers users a wide range of options for arranging their text.

But this is by no means a matter of course. Generally, in these situations you mark the text and the software then displays it how you wish. You don’t actually get to see the source text itself, including the markup elements (markers), with Word and similar programs. And if you did, you probably wouldn’t know what to do with it: This code can scarcely be read by people.

Languages like HTML or LaTeX can be written with any text editor, but they aren’t easy for people to decipher. The simplified markup language Markdown seeks to change exactly that. It wants the best of both worlds: to be understandable for both people and machines. Markdown uses self-explanatory elements to format the text. This means the text is relatively easy for people to read.

1. Markdown tutorial: The right syntax for your documents

What is Markdown used for?

Just like HTML or LaTeX, Markdown is a markup language. In contrast to these examples, however, Markdown aims to be as easy as possible for people to read. Each markup element is closely related to the actual meaning, rather than being abstract. This can be shown most easily with an example: If you want to highlight a word in bold in HTML, you can either use the '<b>' or the '<strong>' tags.

If you write a document in LaTeX, use the element textbf (in continuous text mode).

Although both can be read relatively easily, they are harder to write – particularly when it comes to longer texts. Markdown simplifies this by marking bold passages with asterisks.

On the one hand, this version is easier to read as the asterisks make the bold text clear, and on the other hand, the four characters can be typed much quicker than tags. Even without converting (i.e. in plain text), a reader can easily determine what the author means – even without understanding the Markdown syntax.

This makes Markdown appealing particularly to users who don’t have a background in IT or web design skills, but still want to write texts for the internet regularly : for example, bloggers who work with a content management system (CMS). But even tech-savvy people resort to Markdown for writing simple texts. For instance, some programmers use the Markdown language to write supporting documents (e.g. readme files) that aren’t converted. Whether the user opens the text in a Markdown viewer or reads it in its raw state, there’s barely a difference in terms of readability.

For the most well-known CMSs like WordPress or Joomla, there are plugins that enable systems to understand Markdown. Many wikis, forums (such as reddit), and the website generator Jekyll can also work with the simplified markup language.

Markup languages are not considered to be programming languages. The former are only intended to define how a text is to be structured. Conversely, programming languages are characterized by loops and variables, forming the basis for writing software.

Markdown does not attempt to replace HTML – its creative possibilities are far too limited in any case. The developers of the language instead view Markdown as a complement. It’s possible to insert HTML elements into a Markdown document, thereby expanding the range of the relatively basic language. However, the Markdown language is intended primarily to simplify writing (especially online). When Markdown documents are converted by the parser, documents such as HTML documents are created to enable display in browsers.

The name “Markdown” is a play on words. Although a member of the “markup languages,” the name Markdown makes it clear that it concerns a down-scaled language.

Markdown tutorial: The right syntax for your documents

Since Markdown aims to be as simple a markup language as possible, the Markdown syntax is also virtually self-explanatory. Nonetheless, you first need to familiarize yourself with the markup elements before you can use it. We’ve compiled the most important functions for you.

Bold & italics

Markdown makes it especially easy to create bold and italicized text. Only asterisks are required to this end. To write in italics, add an asterisk before and after the word or words. For bold text, use two asterisks – and if you want a text to be both bold and italicized, three asterisks are necessary. Alternatively, you can use underscores.

Strikethroughs

In order to create a crossed-out text, use the tilde in Markdown twice in a row, followed by the respective text and then another two tildes.

Text can’t be underlined in Markdown. Although this is possible using the '<u>' tags in HTML, it’s usually inadvisable to do so. That’s because underlined text is used for hyperlinks online and it’s best to avoid confusing the two uses.

Headings

To create a heading in Markdown, a pound sign is typically used. It’s inserted with a space before the corresponding text. To create headings that are lower in the hierarchy and thus smaller, extra pound signs are added. This enables up to six levels of headings, just like in HTML.

Some users also insert pound signs after the headings. This can increase the readability but is not technically required. These signs are simply ignored in the conversion process.

Alternatively, equals signs and hyphens can be used to mark headings. These are inserted in the line below the actual heading. This option only allows you to create two different sizes of headings. One sign per heading is plenty, although multiple consecutive signs can often be seen. This is purely based on visual reasons since it looks as if the text is underlined once or twice.

Paragraphs

The Markdown language works with hard line breaks to separate paragraphs from each other. To create a completely new block of text (

tag), simply add an empty line. Important note: for Markdown, it’s sufficient if the line is visually empty. So if the line contains white spaces like tabs or spaces, the parser will ignore them and consider the line to be empty. If you want to create a line break like the
tag, add two spaces at the end of a line.

Quotes

In Markdown, quotes in a certain part of the text are indicated using a blockquote element. The greater-than sign is used for this purpose (>). You have the option to either mark each individual line with this sign or to insert it only at the beginning of the paragraph and to end the indented passage with an empty line. Additional formatting elements are possible in the blockquote element.

Lists

To create an unsorted list in Markdown, you can use either the plus sign, the hyphen or an asterisk. All three ways produce the same result.

Conversely, a sorted list is generated by a number directly followed by a period.

Interestingly, the actual number is irrelevant in Markdown. Even if you write “first” three times or start with “third”, the Markdown language will always begin the list with the correct number.

Markdown also gives you the option of creating checklists. These appear with a box that can be activated by clicking on it. You can also add a checkmark when creating the list. To do so, insert square brackets and an X.

R Markdown Tutorial

It’s important that you remember to leave a space between the square brackets for empty checkboxes. Otherwise, Markdown won’t recognize your text as a list.

Code

To mark a text as code in Markdown, a backtick – also known as an accent grave – is used (not to be confused with a simple quotation mark). The text is marked with a backtick at the start and end of the relevant passage. This enables source code or software commands to be incorporated directly into the running text.

When writing the code, take care not to accidentally insert an accent grave: à. This occurs automatically when you type a vowel after the sign. You can avoid this problem by first pressing the space bar after the backtick and then writing the vowel.

If a backtick is used in your code example itself, you can also use the sign twice at the beginning of the code section. In this case, Markdown will not interpret the simple backtick as an instruction.

To mark an entire block as source code, you can either use a tab or four spaces – for each line. You can indent the selected lines further by adding more tabs or spaces.

If you’d prefer to use signs to start and end code blocks, you can also mark the corresponding passage with three backticks at the start and at the end. Here you also have the option – at least with many Markdown editors – to create color highlights automatically. To do so, enter the language of the following source code after the three introductory backticks.

Images & hyperlinks

Markdown can likewise be used to integrate images and hyperlinks in your text. Both are created with a combination of square and round brackets. You can generate a link by placing the anchor text – i.e. the words or phrases visible in the text – in square brackets and inserting the URL in round brackets directly afterwards. If you’d like to give the hyperlink an optional title that the user can see in the mouseover, this is also possible: Enter the text in the round brackets, separated from the URL with a space and put in double quotation marks.

If you want to include a URL or an email address in the normal running text, most Markdown editors automatically create a clickable hyperlink. But to make sure this happens, you can insert a less-than and greater-than sign. To prevent this automatic editor feature, however, you should mark the URL as code and use backticks again.

As with hyperlinks, images can also be added to the Markdown document. To add images, start with an exclamation mark. Afterwards again insert square brackets which contain the alternative text for the image and round brackets with the image URL. This is then directly displayed in the text.

Of course, you can also link to HTML pages or images on your own server. If the current document is located on the same server, relative paths suffice.

Discord Markdown Guide

Images and hyperlinks can also be combined. To create a clickable link behind an image, you can nest the two functions together. In this case, the image becomes the anchor text and thus appears in the square brackets.

Tables

Pipes (|) allow tables to be drawn in Markdown. Each cell is separated by a pipe. To create the header rows that are visually distinct from the rest of the content, you highlight the corresponding cells with hyphens.

In principle, it’s not important that the pipes are located one below the other. This only increases the readability when the Markdown document is viewed in its raw version. The same applies to pipes located to the side. These are likewise inconsequential for the compiling process.

Footnotes

Markdown gives you the option of inserting footnotes. You can write a reference number in the running text and link to the footnote at the end of the page – a corresponding line is created automatically. The reference number is also formatted as a hyperlink. Clicking on it leads directly to the relevant footnote. To use this automatic function, you should first insert the reference number after the respective word. In square brackets, you first write a circumflex and then the number.

The number you use (other terms are also possible) does not matter. Just like when creating lists, Markdown automatically performs the counting for you. However, it’s important that you correctly link to the reference again for the footnote. Add the same number to a new line with a circumflex in a bracket, insert a colon and then write the actual footnote. It can also be fully formatted and encompass multiple lines.

You can actually add the note anywhere in the text. Markdown will always display it at the end of the document. To close the note and return to the actual running text, insert an empty line.

& and <>

Since Markdown is closely related to HTML, the “and” symbol as well as the less-than and greater-than sign deserve special attention. These signs are used in HTML to open and close tags (<>) or to work with entities (&). But if you want to use the signs for their original purpose, they have to be masked in HTML: &, < and >. In general, there’s no reason in Markdown why you can’t use the signs “as they are”. However, since users have the possibility of mixing up Markdown with HTML, this is more complicated in practice. The parser understands when you want the simple characters and when you want HTML code so you don’t need to solve this problem yourself.

Backslash masking

Besides the specific characters involved in HTML, Markdown also uses certain symbols as markups. When you insert them, the parser will respond to them during conversion. This pertains to the following signs:

• Asterisk: *
• Hyphen: -
• Underscore: _
• Round brackets: ()
• Square brackets: []
• Curly brackets: {}
• Period: .
• Exclamation mark: !
• Pound: #
• Accent grave: `
• Backslash:

To use these signs for their original purpose, simply add a backslash in front of them. Important: The backslash must be entered before each individual sign, i.e. before an opening bracket and before a closing bracket.

Would you like to try Markdown yourself? Find out which program is right for your system in our article on Markdown editors.