Markdown: Basics
Getting the Gist of Markdown's Formatting Syntax
This page offers a brief overview of what it's like to use Markdown. The [syntax page] s provides complete, detailed documentation for every feature, but Markdown should be very easy to pick up simply by looking at a few examples of it in action. The examples on this page are written in a before/after style, showing example syntax and the HTML output produced by Markdown.
It's also helpful to simply try Markdown out; the [Dingus] d is a web application that allows you type your own Markdown-formatted text and translate it to XHTML.
Note: This document is itself written using Markdown; you can see the source for it by editing this tiddler.
Paragraphs, Headers, Blockquotes
A paragraph is simply one or more consecutive lines of text, separated by one or more blank lines. (A blank line is any line that looks like a blank line — a line containing nothing but spaces or tabs is considered blank.) Normal paragraphs should not be indented with spaces or tabs.
Markdown offers two styles of headers: Setext and atx.
Setext-style headers for <h1> and <h2> are created by
“underlining” with equal signs (=) and hyphens (-), respectively.
To create an atx-style header, you put 1-6 hash marks (#) at the
beginning of the line — the number of hashes equals the resulting
HTML header level.
Blockquotes are indicated using email-style '>' angle brackets.
Markdown:
A First Level Header
====================
A Second Level Header
---------------------
Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of their country. This is just a
regular paragraph.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
dog's back.
### Header 3
> This is a blockquote.
>
> This is the second paragraph in the blockquote.
>
> ## This is an H2 in a blockquote
Output:
<h1>A First Level Header</h1>
<h2>A Second Level Header</h2>
<p>Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of their country. This is just a
regular paragraph.</p>
<p>The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
dog's back.</p>
<h3>Header 3</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a blockquote.</p>
<p>This is the second paragraph in the blockquote.</p>
<h2>This is an H2 in a blockquote</h2>
</blockquote>
Phrase Emphasis
Markdown uses asterisks and underscores to indicate spans of emphasis.
Markdown:
Some of these words *are emphasized*.
Some of these words _are emphasized also_.
Use two asterisks for **strong emphasis**.
Or, if you prefer, __use two underscores instead__.
Output:
<p>Some of these words <em>are emphasized</em>.
Some of these words <em>are emphasized also</em>.</p>
<p>Use two asterisks for <strong>strong emphasis</strong>.
Or, if you prefer, <strong>use two underscores instead</strong>.</p>
Lists
Unordered (bulleted) lists use asterisks, pluses, and hyphens (*,
+, and -) as list markers. These three markers are
interchangable; this:
* Candy.
* Gum.
* Booze.
this:
+ Candy.
+ Gum.
+ Booze.
and this:
- Candy.
- Gum.
- Booze.
all produce the same output:
<ul>
<li>Candy.</li>
<li>Gum.</li>
<li>Booze.</li>
</ul>
Ordered (numbered) lists use regular numbers, followed by periods, as list markers:
1. Red
2. Green
3. Blue
Output:
<ol>
<li>Red</li>
<li>Green</li>
<li>Blue</li>
</ol>
If you put blank lines between items, you'll get <p> tags for the
list item text. You can create multi-paragraph list items by indenting
the paragraphs by 4 spaces or 1 tab:
* A list item.
With multiple paragraphs.
* Another item in the list.
Output:
<ul>
<li><p>A list item.</p>
<p>With multiple paragraphs.</p></li>
<li><p>Another item in the list.</p></li>
</ul>
Links
Markdown supports two styles for creating links: inline and reference. With both styles, you use square brackets to delimit the text you want to turn into a link.
Inline-style links use parentheses immediately after the link text. For example:
This is an [example link](http://example.com/).
Output:
<p>This is an <a href="http://example.com/">
example link</a>.</p>
Optionally, you may include a title attribute in the parentheses:
This is an [example link](http://example.com/ "With a Title").
Output:
<p>This is an <a href="http://example.com/" title="With a Title">
example link</a>.</p>
Reference-style links allow you to refer to your links by names, which you define elsewhere in your document:
I get 10 times more traffic from [Google][1] than from
[Yahoo][2] or [MSN][3].
[1]: http://google.com/ "Google"
[2]: http://search.yahoo.com/ "Yahoo Search"
[3]: http://search.msn.com/ "MSN Search"
Output:
<p>I get 10 times more traffic from <a href="http://google.com/"
title="Google">Google</a> than from <a href="http://search.yahoo.com/"
title="Yahoo Search">Yahoo</a> or <a href="http://search.msn.com/"
title="MSN Search">MSN</a>.</p>
The title attribute is optional. Link names may contain letters, numbers and spaces, but are not case sensitive:
I start my morning with a cup of coffee and
[The New York Times][NY Times].
[ny times]: http://www.nytimes.com/
Output:
<p>I start my morning with a cup of coffee and
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">The New York Times</a>.</p>
Images
Image syntax is very much like link syntax.
Inline (titles are optional):
Reference-style:
![alt text][id]
[id]: /path/to/img.jpg "Title"
Both of the above examples produce the same output:
<img src="/path/to/img.jpg" alt="alt text" title="Title" />
Code
In a regular paragraph, you can create code span by wrapping text in
backtick quotes. Any ampersands (&) and angle brackets (< or
>) will automatically be translated into HTML entities. This makes
it easy to use Markdown to write about HTML example code:
I strongly recommend against using any `<blink>` tags.
I wish SmartyPants used named entities like `—`
instead of decimal-encoded entites like `—`.
Output:
<p>I strongly recommend against using any
<code><blink></code> tags.</p>
<p>I wish SmartyPants used named entities like
<code>&mdash;</code> instead of decimal-encoded
entites like <code>&#8212;</code>.</p>
To specify an entire block of pre-formatted code, indent every line of
the block by 4 spaces or 1 tab. Just like with code spans, &, <,
and > characters will be escaped automatically.
Markdown:
If you want your page to validate under XHTML 1.0 Strict,
you've got to put paragraph tags in your blockquotes:
<blockquote>
<p>For example.</p>
</blockquote>
Output:
<p>If you want your page to validate under XHTML 1.0 Strict,
you've got to put paragraph tags in your blockquotes:</p>
<pre><code><blockquote>
<p>For example.</p>
</blockquote>
</code></pre>