Markdown in 5 minutes – Quick Refresher Guide

1. Introduction

Markdown is one of the most popular markup languages. It is used to add style to plain text. You might have already used it when writing on StackOverflow or Github. It is also used for writing documentation and creating static websites.
This blog is a quick tutorial for Markdown.

Some of the famoMarkdownscumentation system swagger supports Markdown. Jekyll tool Markdownsed to create static websites using Markdown.

2. Simple Example of Markdown

Below is a simple example generated on an online Markdown editing tool https://dillinder.io/

3. How Markdown works

In the above example, you see the Markdown in the left pane, and on the right side, we get the output of the Markdown.

The markdown app (dillinger.io) takes the markdown text that we write on the left pane, generates the corresponding HTML, and renders it on the right side window.

4. Important elements of Markdown

Headings

• # for the titles
• ## for the main headings
• ### for the subheadings
• #### for the smaller subheadings
• ##### for the italic subheadings

Emphasis

• __string__ or **string** for bold text
• _string_ or *string*  for italic text

Monospace fonts

• A back single quotation mark ` on both sides to get monospace fonts

Line breaks

• <br> wherever you want a line break, as the notebook sometimes doesn`t give you the required line break where you want it

Indenting

• > to indent the text
• >> for further indenting it, and so on

Bullets and numbering

• A single dash, i.e. -  followed by two spaces to make bullet points
• A number and a dot followed by a space, i.e. 1. to make numbered lists

Colouring

• <font color = blue, yellow, red, pink, green, etc.> String </font> to give your font any colour that you want

5. Markdown Processors

Markdown extensions are a kind of plugins in the markdown processors (or markdown app) that extend the capability of core markdown & its supported elements.
Latex is an extension that allows writing complex multi-variable mathematical equations using Markdown. PlantUML is something using which we can create UML diagrams.

6. Conclusion

Markdown is a simple yet powerful styling language. We can use Markdown in a simple text editor, and its capabilities are extendible using extensions.
Its application is across documentation, web-page generation & on the web for simple and complex writing.

You can learn and practice writing markdown on the markdown tutorial website https://www.markdowntutorial.com/