How to Use Markdown

Whether you're posting connected Reddit, Discord, oregon Github, there's lone 1 mode to adhd formatting: Markdown. If you privation to adhd a link, bold immoderate text, oregon adjacent divided substance into paragraphs, you volition request to cognize the basics of this text-based formatting system.

Does that dependable scary? Trust me, it’s not. Markdown has conscionable a fewer rules for formatting substance the mode you want, and you lone request to larn the rules for the formatting you really use.

Let's spell implicit the elemental rules, speech astir wherefore Markdown is useful, past instrumentality a look astatine a fewer resources you tin usage to spell further with Markdown.

The Basics of Markdown

Markdown is simply a mode to use affluent formatting to plaintext by adding definite characters to it. On platforms similar Discord oregon Reddit, wherever messages are abbreviated and comparatively simple, you truly lone request to larn a fewer basics:

• To italicize text, enactment an asterisk earlier and aft it, *like this*
• To bold text, enactment 2 asterisks earlier and aft it, **like this**
• To see a link, enactment the substance of the nexus successful quadrate brackets followed instantly by the URL successful parentheses, [Like this](https://justinpot.com/)
• To adhd an image, commencement with an exclamation point, with the quadrate bracket containing a statement of the image, and the parentheses containing a nexus to an representation file, 
• To commencement a caller paragraph, deed Enter twice, truthful that there's a wide enactment betwixt the existent enactment of substance and the adjacent one.

The supra 5 tips are much than capable for things similar Reddit and Discord. Even though you’re typing what looks similar code, erstwhile your station is published, each you’ll spot is the rich-text formatting, implicit with links and images.

If you're utilizing Markdown to constitute full documents, though, you're going to request a fewer document-specific tools. Here are the cardinal ones:

• To marque a header (like the large-font substance “The Basics of Markdown” seen supra connected this article) commencement a enactment of substance with a lb motion followed by a space, # Like this.
• To marque smaller headers, usage much lb signs, ## Like this for h2 oregon ### Like this for h3, and truthful on. The much lb signs you add, the smaller your header substance volition be.
• To make a bulleted list, simply commencement a enactment of substance with an asterisk followed by a space, * Like this. You tin adhd arsenic galore bulleted lines to your database arsenic you want.
• To indent a database item, enactment a tab earlier the asterisk. To indent further, simply adhd much tabs.
• To make a numbered list, commencement a enactment of substance with a fig and a period, 1. Like this.
• To indent a numbered database item, adhd a tab earlier the number. To indent further, simply adhd much tabs.
• To adhd a artifact punctuation to your document, simply commencement a nexus of substance with a “greater than” sign, > similar this.

That covers astir of what you request to cognize successful bid to constitute a papers successful Markdown. If you're confused astir however this formatting volition look, it helps to play astir and spot the results. A large website to bash this connected is MarkdownLivePreview.com. The near sheet shows the Markdown portion the close broadside shows however that volition look. Try antithetic things determination for a spot and you'll consciousness a batch much comfortable.

Why Use Markdown astatine All?

This each mightiness person you asking: Why are sites forcing radical to larn a somewhat esoteric mode to format text? And the reply is that this system, adjacent if a small spot confusing astatine first, is precise straightforward and wide erstwhile you get utilized to it.

Most radical get utilized to penning connected a machine utilizing tools similar Microsoft Word oregon Google Docs. There are some connection processors, meaning they are built to correspond a printed leafage connected your screen. They besides some are called “what you spot is what you get” editors—or WYSIWYG editors—meaning that the formatting is shown connected the surface directly. If you bold immoderate text, you spot it arsenic bold connected the screen; if you adhd a link, you spot the linked substance get underlined and crook bluish similar it would connected a web page. There is nary mode to tell, by looking astatine the substance itself, wherever bolding begins and ends oregon what the destination of the nexus is.

This mightiness look intuitive, and to beryllium just determination is simply a simplicity to it. But that simplicity is made imaginable by codification that the idiosyncratic does not see, and the information that the codification is kept down the scenes tin beryllium confusing successful immoderate ways. Anyone who has tried to adhd a fewer words to the extremity of a link, oregon close aft a link, knows that this ambiguity tin beryllium frustrating—you'll extremity up either accidentally making the nexus longer than you intended, oregon doing the other and adding substance that’s not linked. This doesn't hap portion penning successful Markdown due to the fact that you tin intelligibly spot wherever each the formatting begins and ends.

Markdown files are besides future-proof. Because each of the substance formatting, linking, and papers operation schema is written successful plaintext, a format that hasn't changed successful decades and isn't owned by immoderate 1 company, you tin beryllium reasonably definite that anyone who finds a Markdown record successful 50 years is going to beryllium capable to marque consciousness of it. The aforesaid can't beryllium said astir Microsoft Office files.