What is Markdown?

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. The overriding design goal for Markdown's formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it's been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.

Unlike bulky word processing applications, Markdown is just plain text. This makes it incredibly portable, platform-independent, and future-proof. You can create a Markdown file in any simple text editor, and it will be readable everywhere. An application like this Live Previewer then renders that simple text into beautifully formatted HTML for display on a webpage.

Why You Should Be Using Markdown

1. Simplicity and Readability: Markdown syntax is incredibly easy to learn. It uses punctuation characters that have been chosen to look like what they mean. You type `*italic*` to get italics and `**bold**` to get bold. It's intuitive and doesn't clutter your writing.
2. Platform Independence: Since it's just plain text, Markdown is not locked to any proprietary software or format. Your files can be opened by any text editor on any operating system, now and in the future.
3. Separation of Content and Style: Markdown allows you to focus on your writing (the content) without worrying about the presentation (the style). You can write a document once and then apply different themes or stylesheets to change how it looks when rendered.
4. It's Fast: Writing in Markdown is much faster than using a WYSIWYG editor. You don't need to take your hands off the keyboard to click buttons or open menus to format your text. This creates a seamless, efficient writing workflow.
5. Vast Ecosystem and Support: Markdown is the standard for a huge number of platforms, including GitHub (for README files), Reddit, Stack Overflow, and countless note-taking and documentation applications. Learning Markdown is a skill that is valuable across the web.

Essential Markdown Syntax: A Quick-Start Guide

Here are the fundamental elements you need to know to get started. Our Live Previewer is a great way to practice these.

Headings

To create a heading, add number signs (`#`) in front of a word or phrase. The number of number signs you use will determine the size of the heading.# Heading 1 ## Heading 2 ### Heading 3

Text Styles

You can make text bold, italic, or strikethrough.*This text will be italic* **This text will be bold** ~~This text will be strikethrough~~

Lists

You can organize items into ordered and unordered lists.
Unordered:* Item 1 * Item 2 * Nested Item
Ordered:1. First Item 2. Second Item 3. Third Item

Links

To create a hyperlink, wrap the link text in brackets `[ ]`, and then follow it immediately with the URL in parentheses `( )`.[OmniTools](https://omnitools.site/)

Images

To add an image, add an exclamation mark `!`, followed by alt text in brackets, and the path or URL to the image in parentheses.![A description of the image](https://via.placeholder.com/150)

Blockquotes

To create a blockquote, add a `>` in front of a paragraph.> This is a blockquote. It's great for quoting text from another source.

Code

To denote a word or phrase as code, enclose it in backticks ``. For a larger block of code, fence it with three backticks ``` on lines before and after.Use `document.getElementById()` to select an element.

```javascript
function greet() {
  console.log("Hello, world!");
}
```

Tables

You can create tables by separating columns with pipes `|` and the header from the body with dashes `-`.| Header 1 | Header 2 | |----------|----------| | Cell 1 | Cell 2 | | Cell 3 | Cell 4 |

By mastering these simple syntaxes, you can write beautifully structured and formatted documents with ease and efficiency. Using a live previewer is the best way to see your Markdown come to life as you write.