This page offers a brief overview of what it's like to use Markdown. The [syntax page] [s] provides complete, detailed documentation for every feature, but Markdown should be very easy to pick up simply by looking at a few examples of it in action. The examples on this page are written in a before/after style, showing example syntax and the HTML output produced by Markdown.

It's also helpful to simply try Markdown out; the [Dingus] [d] is a web application that allows you type your own Markdown-formatted text and translate it to XHTML.

A paragraph is simply one or more consecutive lines of text, separated by one or more blank lines. (A blank line is any line that looks like a blank line – a line containing nothing but spaces or tabs is considered blank.) Normal paragraphs should not be indented with spaces or tabs.

Markdown offers two styles of headers: Setext and atx. Setext-style headers for <h1> and <h2> are created by “underlining” with equal signs (=) and hyphens (-), respectively. To create an atx-style header, you put 1-6 hash marks (#) at the beginning of the line – the number of hashes equals the resulting HTML header level.

Blockquotes are indicated using email-style '>' angle brackets.

Markdown:

A First Level Header
====================

A Second Level Header
---------------------

Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of their country. This is just a
regular paragraph.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
dog's back.

### Header 3

> This is a blockquote.
> 
> This is the second paragraph in the blockquote.
>
> ## This is an H2 in a blockquote

Output:

<h1>A First Level Header</h1>

<h2>A Second Level Header</h2>

<p>Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of their country. This is just a
regular paragraph.</p>

<p>The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
dog's back.</p>

<h3>Header 3</h3>

<blockquote>
    <p>This is a blockquote.</p>
    
    <p>This is the second paragraph in the blockquote.</p>
    
    <h2>This is an H2 in a blockquote</h2>
</blockquote>

Markdown uses asterisks and underscores to indicate spans of emphasis.

Markdown:

Some of these words *are emphasized*.
Some of these words _are emphasized also_.

Use two asterisks for **strong emphasis**.
Or, if you prefer, __use two underscores instead__.

Output:

<p>Some of these words <em>are emphasized</em>.
Some of these words <em>are emphasized also</em>.</p>

<p>Use two asterisks for <strong>strong emphasis</strong>.
Or, if you prefer, <strong>use two underscores instead</strong>.</p>
   

Unordered (bulleted) lists use asterisks, pluses, and hyphens (*, +, and -) as list markers. These three markers are interchangable; this:

*   Candy.
*   Gum.
*   Booze.

this:

+   Candy.
+   Gum.
+   Booze.

and this:

-   Candy.
-   Gum.
-   Booze.

all produce the same output:

<ul>
<li>Candy.</li>
<li>Gum.</li>
<li>Booze.</li>
</ul>

Ordered (numbered) lists use regular numbers, followed by periods, as list markers:

1.  Red
2.  Green
3.  Blue

Output:

<ol>
<li>Red</li>
<li>Green</li>
<li>Blue</li>
</ol>

If you put blank lines between items, you'll get <p> tags for the list item text. You can create multi-paragraph list items by indenting the paragraphs by 4 spaces or 1 tab:

*   A list item.

    With multiple paragraphs.

*   Another item in the list.

Output:

<ul>
<li><p>A list item.</p>
<p>With multiple paragraphs.</p></li>
<li><p>Another item in the list.</p></li>
</ul>

Markdown supports two styles for creating links: inline and reference. With both styles, you use square brackets to delimit the text you want to turn into a link.

Inline-style links use parentheses immediately after the link text. For example:

This is an [example link](http://example.com/).

Output:

<p>This is an <a href="http://example.com/">
example link</a>.</p>

Optionally, you may include a title attribute in the parentheses:

This is an [example link](http://example.com/ "With a Title").

Output:

<p>This is an <a href="http://example.com/" title="With a Title">
example link</a>.</p>

Reference-style links allow you to refer to your links by names, which you define elsewhere in your document:

I get 10 times more traffic from [Google][1] than from
[Yahoo][2] or [MSN][3].

[1]: http://google.com/        "Google"
[2]: http://search.yahoo.com/  "Yahoo Search"
[3]: http://search.msn.com/    "MSN Search"

Output:

<p>I get 10 times more traffic from <a href="http://google.com/"
title="Google">Google</a> than from <a href="http://search.yahoo.com/"
title="Yahoo Search">Yahoo</a> or <a href="http://search.msn.com/"
title="MSN Search">MSN</a>.</p>

The title attribute is optional. Link names may contain letters, numbers and spaces, but are not case sensitive:

I start my morning with a cup of coffee and
[The New York Times][NY Times].

[ny times]: http://www.nytimes.com/

Output:

<p>I start my morning with a cup of coffee and
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">The New York Times</a>.</p>

Image syntax is very much like link syntax.

Inline (titles are optional):

![alt text](/path/to/img.jpg "Title")

Reference-style:

![alt text][id]

[id]: /path/to/img.jpg "Title"

Both of the above examples produce the same output:

<img src="/path/to/img.jpg" alt="alt text" title="Title" />

In a regular paragraph, you can create code span by wrapping text in backtick quotes. Any ampersands (&) and angle brackets (< or >) will automatically be translated into HTML entities. This makes it easy to use Markdown to write about HTML example code:

I strongly recommend against using any `<blink>` tags.

I wish SmartyPants used named entities like `&mdash;`
instead of decimal-encoded entities like `&#8212;`.

Output:

<p>I strongly recommend against using any
<code>&lt;blink&gt;</code> tags.</p>

<p>I wish SmartyPants used named entities like
<code>&amp;mdash;</code> instead of decimal-encoded
entities like <code>&amp;#8212;</code>.</p>

To specify an entire block of pre-formatted code, indent every line of the block by 4 spaces or 1 tab. Just like with code spans, &, <, and > characters will be escaped automatically.

Markdown:

If you want your page to validate under XHTML 1.0 Strict,
you've got to put paragraph tags in your blockquotes:

    <blockquote>
        <p>For example.</p>
    </blockquote>

Output:

<p>If you want your page to validate under XHTML 1.0 Strict,
you've got to put paragraph tags in your blockquotes:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;blockquote&gt;
    &lt;p&gt;For example.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
</code></pre>