Philosophy:
Markdown is intended to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible.
Readability, however, is emphasized above all else. 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. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters — including Setext, atx, Textile, reStructuredText, Grutatext, and EtText — the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.
To this end, Markdown’s syntax is comprised entirely of punctuation characters, which punctuation characters have been carefully chosen so as to look like what they mean. E.g., asterisks around a word actually look like emphasis. Markdown lists look like, well, lists. Even blockquotes look like quoted passages of text, assuming you’ve ever used email. Inline HTML
Markdown’s syntax is intended for one purpose: to be used as a format for writing for the web.
Markdown is not a replacement for HTML, or even close to it. Its syntax is very small, corresponding only to a very small subset of HTML tags. The idea is not to create a syntax that makes it easier to insert HTML tags. In my opinion, HTML tags are already easy to insert. The idea for Markdown is to make it easy to read, write, and edit prose. HTML is a publishing format; Markdown is a writing format. Thus, Markdown’s formatting syntax only addresses issues that can be conveyed in plain text.
For any markup that is not covered by Markdown’s syntax, you simply use HTML itself. There’s no need to preface it or delimit it to indicate that you’re switching from Markdown to HTML; you just use the tags.
The only restrictions are that block-level HTML elements — e.g. <div>, <table>, <pre>, <p>, etc. — must be separated from surrounding content by blank lines, and the start and end tags of the block should not be indented with tabs or spaces. Markdown is smart enough not to add extra (unwanted) <p> tags around HTML block-level tags. Source
Basic Markdown Formatting
Headings
# This is an <h1> tag
## This is an <h2> tag
### This is an <h3> tag
#### This is an <h4> tag
##### This is an <h5> tag
###### This is an <h6> tag
Result:
This is an <h1> tag
This is an <h2> tag
This is an <h3> tag
This is an <h4> tag
This is an <h5> tag
This is an <h6> tag
Emphasis
*This text will be italic*
_This will also be italic_
**This text will be bold**
__This will also be bold__
_You **can** combine them_
Result:
This text will be italic
This will also be italic
This text will be bold
This will also be bold
You can combine them
Lists
Inordered:
* Milk
* Bread
* Wholegrain
* Butter
Result:
- Milk
- Bread
- Wholegrain
- Butter
Ordered:
1. Tidy the kitchen
2. Prepare ingredients
3. Cook delicious things
Result:
- Tidy the kitchen
- Prepare ingredients
- Cook delicious things
Images
Result:
Links
[link](http://example.com)
Result:
Blockquotes
As Kanye West said:
> We're living the future so
> the present is our past.
Result:
As Kanye West said:
We’re living the future so the present is our past.
Horizontal Rules
---
Result:
Code Snippets
Indenting by 4 spaces will turn an entire paragraph into a code-block.
Result:
.my-link {
text-decoration: underline;
}
Reference Lists & Titles
**The quick brown [fox][1], jumped over the lazy [dog][2].**
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox "Wikipedia: Fox"
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog "Wikipedia: Dog"
Result:
The quick brown fox, jumped over the lazy dog.
Escaping
\*literally\*
Result:
*literally*
Embedding HTML
<button class="button-save large">Big Fat Button</button>
Result:
Advanced Markdown
Note: Some syntax which is not standard to native Markdown. They’re extensions of the language.
Strike-throughs
~~deleted words~~
Result:
deleted words
Automatic Links
https://ghost.org
Result:
https://ghost.org
Markdown Footnotes
Work in Ghost:
The quick brown fox[^1] jumped over the lazy dog[^2].
[^1]: Foxes are red
[^2]: Dogs are usually not red
Result:
The quick brown fox1 jumped over the lazy dog2.
GitHub Flavored Markdown
Syntax Highlighting
```javascript
function fancyAlert(arg) {
if(arg) {
$.facebox({div:'#foo'})
}
}
```
Result:
function fancyAlert(arg) {
if(arg) {
$.facebox({div:'#foo'})
}
}
Task Lists
- [x] @mentions, #refs, [links](), **formatting**, and <del>tags</del> supported
- [x] list syntax required (any unordered or ordered list supported)
- [x] this is a complete item
- [ ] this is an incomplete item
Result:
- @mentions, #refs, links, formatting, and
tagssupported - list syntax required (any unordered or ordered list supported)
- this is a complete item
- this is an incomplete item
Tables
You can create tables by assembling a list of words and dividing them with hyphens - (for the first row), and then separating each column with a pipe |:
First Header | Second Header | Third Header |
------------ | ------------- ----------------
Content from cell 1 | Content from cell 2 | Content from cell 3 |
Content in the first column | Content in the second column | Content in the third column |
Content in the forth row A | Content in the forth row B | Content in the forth row C |
| First Header | Second Header | Third Header |
|---|---|---|
| Content from cell 1 | Content from cell 2 | Content from cell 3 |
| Content in the first column | Content in the second column | Content in the third column |
| Content in the forth row A | Content in the forth row B | Content in the forth row C |
References
- http://blog.ghost.org/markdown/
- https://guides.github.com/features/mastering-markdown/
