Markdown is a lightweight markup language with a plain text formatting syntax. So, like HTML it's a markup language but we don't use tags or anything like that here. It's a very readable syntax and it can be converted into HTML/XHTML as well as other formats. It's main purpose is readibility. The creators of markdown basically wanted documents to look like as plain text documents without any HTML tags or anything like that.
It's widely used for Readme files (Github) and documentation. It's also used for forum, blogpost, static site generators etc. Markdown uses .md as it's extension.
Cheatsheet for Markdown
Headings
To give the headings we just simply need to add # and a space just before the heading. Similar to HTML headings, markdown also has 6 level of headings. In markdown, as we decrease the size of heading, we need to add more # before it.
# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4
##### Heading 5
###### Heading 6
It will give the following output :
Italics
To make the text italics we have two options. Either we need to use one astreisk(*) symbol both side of the text or one underscore(_) symbol both side of the text.
*text*
OR
_text_
Both of them will give the following output :
Strong or Bold
To make the text bold we have again two options. Either we need to use two astreisk(*) symbol both side of the text or two underscore(_) symbol both side of the text.
*Bold text*
OR
_Bold text_
Both of them will give the following output :
Strikethrough
To make the text strikethrough we need to use double tilde(~) on both side of the text.
~~text~~
This will give the following output:
Horizontal Rule (Line)
To give horizontal lines we have two options. Either we use three hyphen(-) symbol or three underscore (_) symbol. It will generate a horizontal line just like this
It's equivalent to <hr> tag of HTML.
Block Quote
To write blockquotes we use greater than (>) symbol just before the text.
>There is no substitute of hard work.
OUTPUT :
Link
To display the link we need to use bracket [ ] in which text part will be written and just after that parenthesis ( ) will be used in which link will be written.
[Google](https://www.google.co.in/)
OUTPUT :
We can add a hover feature on the text so that when we hover over the text, it displays the title of that website. For that we just need to write the title of the website just after the link inside double quote inside the parenthesis. There should be a space between link and title of the website.
[Google](https://www.google.co.in "Google")
OUTPUT :
As you can see, I have hovered the cursor over the text and it's showing the title of the website which in this case is Google.
Image
To insert an image the syntax is similar to the link. Just we need to add exclamation (!) symbol before the text bracket.
OUTPUT :
NOTE : Text inside the bracket is the alternate text which will only be visible if image won't be visible by any chance.
Ordered List
To write ordered list we just need to use numbers.
1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item 3
1. Nested Item1
2. Nested Item2
4. Item 4
5. Item 5
OUTPUT :
Unordered List
To write ordered list we need to use astreisk (*) or hyphen (-) symbol.
- item A
- item B
- item C
* nested item1
* nested item2
- item D
- item E
OUTPUT :
Inline Codeblock
We use backtick (`) symbol to write single line code or some specific tags.
`<p> All is Well ! </p>`
OUTPUT :
Code Snippets
We use backtick (`) symbol 3 times to write multi-line code snippets.
```console.log("Hello World");
```
OUTPUT :
We can insert the name of that language whose code snippets have been written to give it some nice effect.
Example :
```Javascript
function myFunction(p1, p2) {
return p1 * p2;
}
```
OR
```Python
def my_function():
print("Hello from a function")
```
It will give the following output :
So, adding the language name above makes it look more cool and colorful.
Task Lists
To create task lists we need to use hyphen (-) symbol then bracket [] inside which if our task is incomplete then put x there or if it's complete then we need to just leave it empty. And after the bracket we need to just put the name of the task,
- [x] Task 1
- [x] Task 2
- [ ] Task 3
OUTPUT :
NOTE : There should be a space between hyphen and bracket.
Tables
For tables, syntax is kind of tough. That's the reason it's not recommended. But yeah, it definitely gives the nice outlook.
| Syntax | Description | Test Text |
| :--- | :----: | ---: |
| Header | Title | Here's this |
| Paragraph | Text | And more |
OUTPUT :
So, that's it as of now. I know there are more features available for markdown but this much would be more than enough to work on markdown files.