This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Introduction to Markdown Author : Remy van Elst Date : 12-06-2011 URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Markdown_Introduction_Tutorial_Overview.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- Markdown is a lightweight markup language. In this article I'll introduce you to Markdown, give a few examples and an overview of markdown-related software.

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#### What is a lightweight markup language? A lightweight markup language is a markup language with a easy and simple syntax, designed to be easy for a human to enter with a simple text editor, and easy to read in its raw form. Lightweight markup languages are used in applications where people might be expected to read the document source as well as the rendered output. For instance, a person downloading a software library might prefer to read the documentation in a text editor rather than a browser. Another application is for entry in web-based publishing, such as weblogs and wikis, where the input interface is a simple text box. The server software converts the input to a common document markup language like HTML or XHTML. [Wikipedia Article][2] #### What is Markdown? From the creator of markdown: Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). [DaringFireball.net][2] MarkDown lets you write for the web, using simple syntax which is understandable even if it is not converted to HTML. #### Advantages of markdown * Write articles and texts faster than in HTML * Easy to read when not converted * Very fast to learn * HTML can be embedded very easy * A lot of applications compatible with it #### Disadvantages of markdown * No Table support (some dialects have it, but the standard does not). * No text colour options (you need to use html for that) * Some dialects support more options than others. * Targeted at web style markup #### Applications & Websites There are a lot of sites that support and use markdown. I will also mention a few editors with markdown support. Altough every text editor is a markdown editor, these applications have extra features like live preview or a handy button bar. [Official Markdown Page][3] ##### Websites that support markdown as a markup language * [StackOverFlow][4] * [Tumblr][5] * [Posterous][21] * Wordpress has plugins * Dokuwiki & Mediawiki have plugins ##### Online markdown editors * [Markdownr][6] * [Dingus][4] * [John Combe's editor][7] * [CTRLSHIFT][8] * [online markdown editor by werner robitza][9] * [Backpager][10] * [MarkItUp][11] * [Hashify][12] ##### Offline Markdown editors This is a list sorted by Operating System ###### MAC OS X * [Marked][13] * [MarkMyWords][14] * [ByWord][15] * [Mou][16] ###### Windows * [Markdownpad][17] * [WriteMonkey][18] * [Sublimetext][19] ###### Linux * [ReText][20] * Any of the online editors #### Examples Below I'll give some examples, both HTML and Markdown code. ##### Headers In Markdown: # This is an H1 ## This is an H2 ###### This is an H6 In HTML:

This is an H1

This is an H2

This is an H6
##### Unordered Lists In Markdown: * unordered list * item 2 - Dashes * or stars + or Plusses * also subitems - in sublists * Doesn't matter, all lists In HTML: ##### Ordered Lists In Markdown: 1. Item 1 2. Item 2 1. Item 3 3. Item 4 1. Subitem 1 2. Subitem 2 4. Item 5 In HTML:
  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3
  4. Item 4
    1. Subitem 1
    2. Subitem 2
  5. Item 5
##### Blockquotes In Markdown: > blockquote. Lalalalalala > second line of blockquote > and third line In HTML:

blockquote. Lalalalalala
second line of blockquote
and third line

##### Horizontal Lines In Markdown: --- - - - - **************************** In HTML:
##### Links In Markdown: [link name](http://example.org) [link name 2][id] (elsewhere on the page) [id]: http://address.ext "title of the link" In HTML: link name
link name 2 [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language (Wikipedia article about Markup Languages) [3]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ (Official Markdown Page) [4]: http://stackoverflow.com/ (Stackoverflow) [5]: https://www.tumblr.com/ (Tumblr) [6]: http://markdownr.com/ (Markdownr) [7]: http://joncom.be/experiments/markdown-editor/edit/ (John Combe's editor) [8]: http://www.ctrlshift.net/project/markdowneditor/ (CTRLSHIFT.net) [9]: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/werner.robitza/markdown/ (another one) [10]: http://backpager.amasan.co.uk/ (Backpager) [11]: http://markitup.jaysalvat.com/home/ (MarkItUp) [12]: http://hashify.me/ (Hashify) [13]: http://markedapp.com/ (Marked) [14]: http://www.xelaton.com/ (MarkMyWords) [15]: http://bywordapp.com/ (ByWord) [16]: http://mouapp.com/ (Mou) [17]: http://markdownpad.com/ (MarkDownPad) [18]: http://writemonkey.com/index.php (WriteMonkey) [19]: http://www.sublimetext.com/ (Sublimetext) [20]: http://sourceforge.net/p/retext/home/ReText/ (ReText) --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.