Markdown Basics: 9 Important Rules to Know

Markdown is a straightforward way to format text using standard keyboard symbols. You type plain text, add a few characters like asterisks or hashes, and the software turns it into formatted documents. This method is fast, clean, and works almost everywhere.

Text Styling

You can easily change how words look without taking your hands off the keyboard.

Bold and Italic Words

Use asterisks or underscores to emphasize text.

Style	What You Type	Result
Italic	this	this
Bold	this	this
Both	*this*	*this*
Strikethrough	~~this~~	~~this~~

Adding Headings

Headings create a clear structure for your document.

To make a heading, put a hash symbol followed by a space before your text. The number of hashes sets the heading level. One hash is the largest heading. Six hashes make the smallest heading.

Level	What You Type
Heading 1	# Main Title
Heading 2	## Section Title
Heading 3	### Sub-section Title

Organizing Information

Markdown makes it simple to list items and connect to outside resources.

Creating Lists

You can make ordered lists with numbers or unordered lists with bullet points.

For an unordered list, type a dash, an asterisk, or a plus sign followed by a space:

- Apples - Bananas - Oranges

For an ordered list, type a number followed by a period and a space:

1. First step 2. Second step 3. Third step

Links and Pictures

Adding web links and images uses a similar format.

To add a link, put the clickable text in square brackets and the web address in round brackets immediately after it, with no space in between.

[Visit Open Source](https://opensource.org)

To add an image, use the exact same format as a link, but put an exclamation mark directly in front of the first bracket.

![A picture of a cat](cat.jpg)

Special Elements

You can also format quotes and technical text for better readability.

Blockquotes

If you want to quote another person or source, use the greater-than sign before the text.

> This is a blockquote. It indents the text to make it stand out.

Code Blocks

For computer commands or text that you want to leave exactly as typed, use backticks.

For a single word or line of code, wrap it in single backticks.

`like this`

For multiple lines of code, use three backticks on a new line before and after the text.

``` Line one Line two ```

By learning these few symbols, you can write clean, formatted documents very fast. Markdown keeps your focus on the words, not the formatting menus.