What Is Markdown Formatting?

So rather than applying markup to text, you should instead apply the opposite: Markdown. Markdown uses something similar to markup tags but in a compact and writer-friendly way. As an example, the above represented in Markdown would look like this:

One of the principles of Markdown is to be human-readable in source form. And looking at the above, it's clear what's what. The hash mark at the beginning designates a heading, and the asterisks mean emphasis (specifically bold). This convention is something many people do in text messaging, so it's easy to interpret. Even the image, which requires something a little more technical, is easier to understand than the HTML.

A Quick Markdown Formatting Primer

When writing for the web, you can get away with understanding a few main bits of Markdown:

• Headings: Starting a line with a hash mark and a space indicates a heading. One hash means a Level 1 heading, two hashes mean a Level 2 heading, and so forth. Markdown supports up to five levels of headings.
• Bold: Surround some text with double asterisks to make it bold.
• Italics: Surround some text with single asterisks to make it italic.
• Lists: Use dashes or asterisks plus a space for bulleted lists. Otherwise, use numbers with a period and a space. You don't need to order the numbers correctly. Markdown takes care of it on conversion.
• Links: Links use the formula: [link address](the text to be linked). The hardest part is remembering which one gets which type of brackets.
• Images: Images start with an exclamation mark, then hold the image's alt-text in parentheses, with a path to the image in square brackets at the end.

With this tiny bit of Markdown syntax, you have all you need to write an article like this one.

Using Markdown to Create Other Documents

The Markdown project provides a command-line tool to work with Markdown documents. However, this is a command-line utility, so it's not the most convenient. Also, it's written in the somewhat outdated Perl language.

Two other types of apps prove a bit more capable when dealing with Markdown input.

• Pandoc: Among command-line utilities, Pandoc stands out as a virtual Swiss army knife for document conversion. It's worth spending the time to learn. With it, you can output your Markdown files in Word, OpenDocument Text, or PDF formats.
• ReText: You can use any text editor to work in Markdown, but ReText allows you to work in Markdown a little more easily. It's a no-nonsense editor with multiple document tabs and a live preview of your Markdown. It won't export directly to Word format, but you can open an ODT file in Word and save it appropriately.

Markdown Is a Portable Format That's Easy to Work With

Markdown captures your writing wherever you are, regardless of the device you're on. It's best for when you need to focus on your writing, not on the appearance of the final document.

The plain text format is small with respect to file size, portable, and gets you out of the habit of fiddling with fonts until it's time to publish it somewhere. By learning its easy syntax, you'll be equipped to write in content management systems for the web, convert school assignments into attractive PDFs, and everything in between.