What is Markdown and how to use it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-11 10:35

The easiest and most convenient tool for creating texts.

What is Markdown

Markdown is a text markup language created by writer and blogger John Gruber. It is designed to create beautifully designed texts in regular TXT files. You don't need bulky processors like Word or Pages to create bold or italic documents, quotes, links, and even spreadsheets. It is enough to remember the simple rules of Markdown, and you can write even in Notepad. Although specialized Markdown editors are, of course, much more convenient.

This markup language is used by bloggers, writers, editors, and journalists around the world. Anyone who is in one way or another connected with the mentioned professions will find it useful to know about him.

Where you can use Markdown

Notes

A Markdown editor with a file pane (like Atom or iA Writer) is a decent alternative to Evernote and OneNote. We've already covered why Markdown is good for organizing your note base.

Blog drafts

This markup language is compatible with a bunch of online editors and blogging platforms. You can write a draft for your blog in Markdown, and then publish it in seconds - all links, titles, and formatting will look exactly as you intended. This is not for you to copy from Word.

Task lists

Markdown editors make it very easy to create shopping lists, to-do lists, and work assignments. Some geeks use a plain text file todo.txt as an alternative to the trendy Wunderlist and Todoist. You can find out how to do this on the Todo.txt website.

Messengers

Even some messengers support Markdown. For example, in Telegram, you can use it to bold or italicize.

Benefits of Markdown

Versatility

Documents written using Markdown syntax are plain text TXT files. They can be opened on any platform and in any editor. This compares favorably with files created in word processors. Have you tried opening a document from Apple Pages in Word?

Simplicity

Markdown is so simple that even those who have not heard about all your Latex and HTML will be able to master it in 10 minutes. Subheading grids, asterisks for emphasis, dashes for lists. It couldn't be easier.

Large selection of tools

There are very, very many editors for working with Markdown documents. There are online, mobile and desktop tools. There is the monstrous Atom, beautiful and minimalistic ghostwriter and iA Writer, Vim for geeks, and Ulysses for professional writers. I don’t want to choose.

Convertibility

Markdown documents can be easily exported to any format: PDF, DOC, ODT. However, their formatting remains unchanged.

Disadvantages of Markdown

Limited formatting

Since Markdown documents are just plain text files, you can't use pretty fonts in them. Still, it is more of a tool for writing drafts than a full-fledged layout.

Strict rules

In Markdown, text is formatted using service symbols. One extra * or # character and the formatting will change. So you have to be careful when typing in Markdown.

Basic syntax

Markdown texts are formatted with special characters inserted before or after words and phrases. Here are the simplest rules that work in all editors.

Headings

Making headings in Markdown is extremely easy. All you need to remember is the symbol #, it's a lattice, it's a hash. The heading level is determined by the number of lattices in it, there can be six of them in total. It looks like this:

# Header H1

## Heading H2

### Header H3

#### H4 Header

##### H5 Header

###### H6 Header

Text

In addition to headings, Markdown also supports simple text formatting. It can be made italic or bold with asterisks and underscores:

* Italic * and _ Italic _

** Thumbnail** and _ Thumbnail _

*** Bold and italic text ***

Quotes

Sometimes a paragraph needs to be highlighted as a quote. In this case, use the> sign. It must be affixed before each line of the quote.

A very thoughtful quote. Please read it carefully.

Oscar Wilde

Numbered and bulleted lists

Markdown allows you to create lists with any nesting level. Bulleted lists are made with a hyphen in front of each item:

- First point.

- Second point.

- The third point.

Numbered lists are created in the same way, but using numbers:

1. First point.

2. Second point.

3. Third point.

You can also make mixed lists with unlimited nesting. To do this, you need to press Tab once or twice on the space.

1. First point.

- First subparagraph.

- Second subparagraph.

- Third subparagraph.

2. Second point.

- First subparagraph.

- Second subparagraph.

- Third subparagraph.

Horizontal lines

Just enter three times (or more) one of these characters on the keyboard: *, - or _, and a horizontal line is inserted into the document. If there is some other text on the line above it, it will become the heading of the first level. A line can be used to separate large chapters of a document.

***

---

_

Links and images

You can also insert links to pages on the Internet into your documents. It is done like this: [link_head] (link_ itself):

[Lifehacker] (lifehacker.ru)

Similarly, images are inserted into the document. Put an exclamation point, an image caption in square brackets, and a link to it in parentheses. You can specify links to pictures both from the Internet and those stored on your hard drive. Signature is optional. It looks like this:

! [signature] (image_link)

Escaped characters

Sometimes you need to insert some symbol into your document that is related to the Markdown syntax. You print it and the formatting changes, even though you don't need it. In this case, the technical characters must be preceded by a backslash - \.

Extended syntax

Slightly more complex text styling elements that can be used in editors that support GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown). GFM is an extended version of regular Markdown. There are tables, smilies, strikethrough text and other little things. GFM is used by most editors.

Strikethrough text

The extended Markdown GFM syntax allows strikethrough text by enclosing it in double tildes ~~.

~~ Strikethrough text. ~~

Tables

If your editor supports GFM, then you can create simple tables in it. For tables use symbols | and -. Like that:

| times | two | three |

|:----|:----|:----|

| times | two | three |

To-do lists

Markdown even has some kind of to-do lists - analogous to checkboxes in OneNote or Evernote. This is how they look:

- Unfinished task

- Unfinished task

- [X] Completed task

Emoji

There are a few other little things in GFM that may come in handy when formatting text. For example, emoji. To add a smiley, you need to type the appropriate code and enclose it in colons:

: kissing_heart:

You can view emoji codes here.

Code

Since GFM was written for programmers, it has special formatting for chunks of code. The code is highlighted with a `symbol, that is, a gravel. By surrounding a word or phrase with graves, you can create lines of code:

`Some very important code.`

And three graves allow you to mark a whole block of code. It's also useful to highlight an entire paragraph.

```

A whole paragraph of very important code.

And another line.

And further.

```

Markdown apps

You can easily choose your favorite text editor from our selection. Atom is considered one of the best for Markdown - it is good for its incredible flexibility and versatility. Works on Windows, macOS and Linux and has a huge number of themes and extensions. It is very easy to assemble a dream editor out of it.

MacOS users should pay attention to the beautiful and easy-to-use editors iA Writer, Write and Byword.

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They are also offered on iOS.

Android users have access to the same iA Writer, as well as cute Jotterpad and minimalistic Monospace.

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And those who don't want to install anything can get by with Dillinger or StackEdit.