Learn the basics of the Markdown syntax

Markdown is an easy-to-use markup language used for formatting text on the web. It was created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz and is mainly used for writing documentation and blog posts. Below, we present a detailed tutorial on the basics of the Markdown language.

Markdown is designed to be simple to read and write.
Once you learn a few basic rules, you can create professionally-looking documents without using complex tools.

Structuring Text

Headings
Headings are created using the # symbol. The number of # before the text indicates the heading level, from 1 to 6.

# Level 1 Heading
## Level 2 Heading
### Level 3 Heading
#### Level 4 Heading
##### Level 5 Heading
###### Level 6 Heading

Paragraphs To create a paragraph, simply write the text and leave a blank line between paragraphs.

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

Text Formatting

Bold and Italic

*italic* or _italic_

**bold** or __bold__

***bold italic*** or ___bold italic___

Lists Lists can be ordered or unordered.

Unordered lists Use *, +, or - to create unordered lists.

* Item 1
* Item 2
  * Sub-item
* Item 3

Ordered lists

1. First item
2. Second item
   1. Sub-item
3. Third item

Blockquotes To create blockquotes, use the > symbol.

> This is a quote.
> 
> It can span multiple paragraphs.

Links and Images

Links Use square brackets and parentheses.

[Link text](https://example.com)

Inline links: <https://example.com>

Images Similar to links, but preceded by an exclamation mark.

![Alt text](https://example.com/image.jpg)

Code

Inline code To include inline code, use backticks `

export A=1

Code blocks For code blocks, use three backticks ```

def func():
    pass

Tables

Tables can be created using dashes and vertical bars.

| Header 1 | Header 2 |
|----------|----------|
| Cell 1   | Cell 2   |
| Cell 3   | Cell 4   |

Additional Elements

Horizontal lines To create a horizontal line, use three or more asterisks, dashes, or underscores on a separate line.

***

---

___

Escaping special characters To display special characters, use a backslash **

\*This will not be italic\*

These are the basics of Markdown. With this knowledge, you can start creating simply and efficiently formatted documents. Markdown is very useful for documentation, blogging, and quick notes.

Fun Fact — Most tutorials on the bytestark.com platform use Markdown.