Markdown Syntax

This document describes some of the more important parts of Markdown (for writers, that is). There's a lot more to the syntax than is mentioned here, though. To get the full syntax documentation, go to John Gruber's Markdown Syntax page

Headers

For top-level headers underline the text with equal signs. For second-level headers use dashes to underline.

This is an H1
=============

This is an H1

This is an H2
-------------

This is an H2

If you would rather, you can prefix headers with a hash (#) symbol instead. The number of hash symbols indicates the header level. For example, a single hash indicates a header level of one while two indicates the second header level:

# This is an H1

This is an H1

## This is an H2

This is an H2

### This is an H3

This is an H3

Which you choose is a matter of style. Whichever you thinks looks better in the text document. In both cases, the final, fully formatted, document looks the same.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are surrounded by blank lines.

This is paragraph one.

This is paragraph two.

Links

There are two parts to every link. The first is the actual text that the user will see and it is surrounded by brackets. The second is address of the page you wish to link to and it is surrounded in parenthesis.

[link text](http://example.com/) link text

Formatting

To indicate bold text surround the text with two star (*) symbols or two underscore (_) symbols:

**This is bold** This is bold

__This is also bold__ This is also bold

To indicate italicized text surround the text with a single star (*) symbol or underscore (_) symbol:

*This is italics* This is italics

_This is also italics_ This is also italics

To indicate italicized and bold text surround the text with three star (*) symbol or underscore (_) symbol:

***This is bold and italics*** This is italics

___This is also bold and italics___ This is italics

Blockquotes

To create an indented area use the right angle bracket (>) character before each line to be included in the blockquote.

> This is part of a blockquote.
> This is part of the same blockquote.

This is part of a blockquote.
This is part of the same blockquote.

Rather than putting it in front of each line to include in the block quote you can put it at the beginning and end the quote with a newline.

> This is part of a blockquote.
This continues the blockquote even though there's no bracket.

The blank line ends the blockquote.

This is part of a blockquote.
This continues the blockquote even though there's no bracket.

The blank line ends the blockquote.

Lists

To create a numbered list in Markdown, prefix each item in the list with a number followed by a period and space. The number you use actually doesn't matter.

1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item 3

Item 1
Item 2
Item 3

To create a bulleted list, prefix each item in the list with a star (*) character.

* A list item
* Another list item
* A third list item

A list item
Another list item
A third list item

A Lot More

There's a lot more to the Markdown syntax than is mentioned here. But for creative writers, this covers a lot of the necessities. To find out more about Markdown than you'd ever want to really know, go to the Markdown page where it all started.