Image

(Photo: pixabay.com)

Writing texts with Markdown

Markdown is a simplified markup language designed by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. One of the goals of Markdown is that even the initial form is easily readable without further conversion..

... Image By Markus Fleschutz 🕑 May 26, 2018

Why use Markdown at all?

A simple text file does not provide formatting options such as heading, images, bullets, bold, italics, etc. An HTML or PDF file, on the other hand, requires appropriate software to edit, which is often slow to start and cluttered.

Markdown is exactly between these two extremes. It is a text file that both humans and machines can read and edit. With Markdown you can write emails, texts, tables, task lists, homepages and even whole books. There is no faster way to write formatted text than with Markdown. By the way, this website and also the whole homepage is written in Markdown.

How do I use Markdown?

To view Markdown files (usual file extension .md) a Markdown viewer is recommended (e.g. the browser extension "Markdown Viewer"). Markdown as plain text can be displayed by any browser and any text editor.

For editing (or also for displaying) a Markdown editor is recommended (e.g. Typora for Windows/Linux or Epsilon Notes for Android). In a pinch, a text editor will also do.

How do I learn Markdown?

With a Markdown editor, you don't have to learn Markdown, but you can! Don't worry, it's really easy as pie. Let's start with the big heading, which is a "1st order heading". The code for it is:

Headline 1st order
======================

and the result looks like this:

``Header 1st order

The code for a 2nd order heading is:

Headline 2nd order
----------------------

and then looks like this:

Heading 2nd order

Numbered list

The code for a numbered list is:

1. step one
2. step two
3. step three

and looks like this:

  1. step one
  2. step two
  3. step three

Enumeration

The code for an enumeration is:

* Enumeration Alpha
* Enumeration Beta
* Enumeration Charlie

and the result looks like this

Horizontal line

The code for a horizontal line is:


---

and returns:

Quotes

The code for a citation is:

> You have to know facts before you can twist them.
> (Mark Twain)

and provides:

Facts must be known before they can be twisted.

(Mark Twain)

Formatted text

This is a paragraph with highlight (code: **highlight**) or italic (code: *italic*) or ++underline++ (code: ++underline++) or ~~strikeout~~ (code: ~strikethrough~~) or ==Highlight== (code: ==Highlight==) or ^Superscript^ (code: ^Superscript^) or ~Subscript~ (code: ~Subscript~).

Emojis (Unicode).

Links