Getting Started
An overview of Markdown, how it works, and what you can do with it.
Markdown is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents. Created by John Gruber in 2004, Markdown is now one of the world's most popular markup languages.
Using Markdown is different than using a WYSIWYG editor. In an...
Markdown Cheat Sheet
A quick reference to the Markdown syntax.
This Markdown cheat sheet provides a quick overview of all the Markdown syntax elements. It can't cover every edge case, so if you need more information about any of these elements, refer to our reference guides for basic syntax and extended syntax.
These are the elem...
Basic Syntax
The Markdown elements outlined in John Gruber's design document.
Nearly all Markdown applications support the basic syntax outlined in John Gruber's original design document. There are minor variations and discrepancies between Markdown processors — those are noted inline wherever possible.
To create a heading, add number signs (#) in fr...
Extended Syntax
Advanced features that build on the basic Markdown syntax.
The basic syntax outlined in John Gruber's original design document added many of the elements needed on a day-to-day basis, but it wasn't enough for some people. That's where extended syntax comes in.
Several individuals and organizations took it upon themselves to extend the basic syntax by ad...