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description= Every Markdown syntax element explained on one page: headings, bold, italic, lists, code blocks, links, images, escaping and inline HTML, with examples.;
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the, and, lists, markdown, syntax, inline, bold, italic, nested, code, links, best, practices, guide, how, line, strikethrough, blockquotes, ordered, unordered, task, fenced, blocks, highlighting, images, characters, with, backslash, html, escape, common, mistakes, heading, blockquote, reference, to, complete, actually, works, headings, paragraphs, breaks, emphasis, horizontal, rules, escaping, hatch, frequently, asked, questions, related, answers, keep, learning, six, levels, alternate, setext, starting, new, paragraph, forcing, break, trailing, spaces, vs, br, tag, together, basic, other, elements, inside, language, tags, four, space, indent, alternative, adding, title, style, autolinks, footnotes, image, why, alt, text, matters, linked, controlling, size, which, can, be, escaped, when, reach, for, write, it, safely, what, renderers, strip, cheat, sheet, github, flavored, tables, tools, learn, platforms, company,
Text of the page (most frequently used words):
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explained,
Text of the page (random words):
n at 5 instead and a compliant renderer emits ol start 5 that is how you continue a list that a paragraph interrupted nested lists to nest a list inside a list indent the child items four spaces or one tab is the amount that works everywhere two spaces works in many renderers but not all you can mix ordered and unordered levels freely 1 prepare the release bump the version number update the changelog 2 publish tag the commit push to the registry to put a paragraph or code block inside a list item indent it to line up with the item s text rather than with the bullet and keep a blank line above it get that indentation wrong and the block escapes the list entirely our lists guide covers deep nesting and mixed lists in detail task lists gfm adds task lists which show up as interactive checkboxes on github x write the guide proofread it publish two rules matter here the brackets must follow a normal list marker and the space inside an unchecked box is required in github and gitlab issues and pull requests the boxes are clickable ticking one rewrites the underlying markdown for everyone on the thread elsewhere they degrade gracefully into plain bullets with literal brackets code inline fenced blocks and syntax highlighting inline code code is where markdown earns its keep for technical writers and the rule is simple anything marked as code renders literally in a monospaced font with all markdown processing switched off inside it for a fragment inside a sentence wrap it in single backticks npm install variable names commands and filenames all belong in that form if the fragment itself contains a backtick wrap it in double backticks instead leave a space just inside each marker so the runs cannot merge inline code is also the honest way to show markdown symbols in prose without escaping every one of them fenced code blocks for whole blocks use a fence a line of three backticks before and after the code plain unhighlighted code quoting code that contains a line of three backticks open and close with four or more instead a fence only ends on a run at least as long as the one that opened it tildes work as fence characters too which is the tidiest way to wrap one fenced block inside another tip close every fence you open an unclosed fence swallows the whole rest of the document into one grey box and no renderer will warn you if a page goes monospaced from the middle down scroll up to the last fence syntax highlighting with language tags write a language name right after the opening fence such as python js or bash renderers that support highlighting will then colour the code that covers github gitlab most static site generators and our editor python def greet name return f hello name the tags you will use most often are these python js ts go rust and other language names spelled the way the highlighter expects bash or sh for shell commands and terminal sessions json yaml html css sql for data and markup diff to colour added and removed lines green and red text when the block is not code at all such as log output tip add the tag every time it costs nothing where highlighting is unsupported and an unrecognised tag is ignored rather than breaking the block several ecosystems reuse that slot for extras some site generators accept a filename or a line highlight range after the language name our code blocks guide lists the identifiers each major platform recognises the four space indent alternative the original alternative still works indent every line of the block by four spaces and it becomes code with no fence needed fences have won in practice they need no re indenting when you paste code in they carry the language tag and you cannot trigger one by accident the four space rule survives mainly as a trap indent a normal paragraph and you get an unexpected code block if you write a lot of code heavy docs the one page syntax reference keeps all three forms one glance away links inline links the everyday form is inline link text in square brackets url in parentheses our editor https mdeditor tw relative paths work the same way as in the guide markdown guide so do same page anchors as in see below images two pitfalls catch newcomers spaces inside a url break the link so percent encode them as 20 or wrap the whole url in angle brackets and the brackets then parentheses order is easy to flip which the preview pane catches instantly our links reference has more on anchors relative paths and link text that reads well adding a title an optional title in quotes placed after the url becomes the hover tooltip our editor https mdeditor tw free online markdown editor titles are easy to overuse they are invisible on touch devices most screen readers skip them and they are no substitute for link text that already says where the link goes save them for genuinely extra context reference style links some documents repeat the same url over and over and long urls make the source hard to read reference style links solve both you put a short label in the text and define the url once anywhere in the document the convention is to define it at the bottom both the guide docs and the faq docs answer this docs https example com documentation project docs the rendered output is identical and only the source gets cleaner labels are case insensitive leave the second pair of brackets empty and the link text doubles as the label docs definition lines never appear in the output an undefined label renders as literal brackets which is the giveaway that you mistyped one autolinks for a bare url that should be clickable as is wrap it in angle brackets as in https mdeditor tw the same trick works for email addresses email protected gfm goes further and autolinks pasted urls even without the brackets that convenience turns into a nuisance when you did not want a link wrap the url in backticks or escape its first character to keep it plain text footnotes footnotes apply the reference style idea to prose a small marker sits in the sentence and the note itself is defined elsewhere in the file write 1 where the marker belongs then define it on its own line markdown was released in 2004 1 1 created by john gruber with input from aaron swartz the renderer gathers every definition moves it to a notes block at the foot of the page and adds a link back to the marker numbering follows document order no matter what label you type so pricing note and 2005 revision still come out as 1 2 3 named labels are much easier to maintain than numbers insert a note halfway through a draft and nothing needs renumbering support is the catch footnotes are in neither original markdown nor commonmark so they count as an extension github gitlab obsidian and pandoc render them reddit discord and plain commonmark parsers ignore the syntax and print the brackets verbatim our footnotes reference has the multi paragraph form the platform by platform table and the fallbacks worth using elsewhere images image syntax an image is a link with an exclamation mark in front the square brackets hold the alt text the parentheses hold the image url and an optional quoted title follows a split screen markdown editor img md editor screenshot png md editor in action reference style definitions work for images too which keeps long asset paths out of your prose remember that relative paths resolve against the rendered page not the source file a readme image that looks fine on your disk can still break once the file is published our images guide digs into hosting paths and sizing why alt text matters never leave the alt text empty it is what screen readers speak what search engines index and what shows if the image fails to load describe what the image shows in a phrase as if you were telling someone over the phone screenshot is weak side by side editor with raw markdown left and rendered preview right does the job there is one legitimate exception for a purely decorative image deliberately empty alt text tells a screen reader to skip it instead of announcing a filename linked images to make an image clickable nest the image syntax inside a link s square brackets md editor preview img thumb png https mdeditor tw this is how the badge rows at the top of a readme are built each badge is a small image wrapped in a link to the service that generates it the alt text still matters here because it is what a screen reader announces for the link controlling size markdown itself cannot resize or align images there is no width syntax when you need width 400 or centring drop down to an html img tag the inline html section below covers the rules and markdown vs html goes deeper a few ecosystems invent their own shorthand and github accepts plain html plus query parameters on image urls none of it is portable assume the html tag is the only option that travels horizontal rules three or more hyphens asterisks or underscores alone on a line produce a horizontal rule an hr divider ___ all three render identically so pick one and stay with it watch out directly under a line of text is the alternate level 2 heading syntax from the headings section the text above turns into a heading and no rule appears surround every horizontal rule with blank lines and the ambiguity vanishes use rules sparingly one between major thematic sections is plenty a heading is usually the better separator because it also gives the new section a name escaping characters with backslash the backslash escape sometimes you want a literal asterisk hash or bracket with no markdown interpretation at all put a backslash in front of the character to escape it not italic renders with visible asterisks not a heading 1 not a list item just 1 starting a sentence a backslash in front of a character with no special meaning is usually left alone so a regular expression s d survives intact in most parsers that behaviour is a convention rather than a guarantee it is one more reason to put symbol heavy text inside code markers which characters can be escaped sixteen characters respond to a backslash backslash and backtick asterisk and _ underscore curly braces square brackets parentheses hash plus and hyphen period exclamation mark and pipe in practice you reach for the backslash in four places asterisks in ordinary prose a hash at the start of a line a number period that would start an unwanted ordered list and pipes inside table cells two related notes inside code spans and code blocks nothing needs escaping which is exactly what they are for and that is usually the cleaner solution for anything syntax heavy to show a literal backslash escape it with another backslash for a character outside the list above such as an angle bracket you want displayed rather than read as a tag reach for the html entity instead inline html the escape hatch when to reach for html markdown s author built in a deliberate escape hatch any html you type in a markdown document passes through to the output untouched that is the answer whenever markdown has no syntax for what you need u for underlined text which markdown has no marker for kbd for keyboard keys in a shortcut list sup and sub for superscript and subscript img width 400 for an image at a set size details and summary for a collapsible section which github readmes use constantly treat html as seasoning not the meal every tag makes the source less readable and readable source is the very thing markdown exists to protect if you find yourself writing more tags than text you may genuinely want an html document instead markdown vs html walks through where that line sits for most people the honest tally is two or three br and details tags per document and everything else stays markdown how to write it safely the main rule of mixing is about blank lines separate block level html such as div table and details from the surrounding markdown with blank lines do not expect markdown syntax to keep working inside those blocks either classic parsers switch markdown off inside block level tags inline tags like kbd or sup mix freely mid sentence with no such ceremony close every tag you open even the ones html would forgive and quote every attribute value an unclosed div can swallow the rest of the page the renderer treats the block as opaque so it will never warn you about it what renderers strip some environments strip html entirely for security reddit many chat apps and some static site configs all do write the surrounding markdown so it still reads sensibly once the tags vanish others sanitize selectively github keeps details kbd and sized images but removes script style form controls and most inline style attributes the safe assumption is that anything beyond simple presentational markup gets discarded somewhere test the pages that matter in the renderer that will actually publish them one preview is not proof and babelmark settles an argument fast by running the same input through dozens of parsers at once while our markdown file viewer is a quick way to check a whole file before you commit it best practices and common mistakes best practices these are the positive habits that keep documents portable across renderers and the syntax hub has a deeper page behind each one blank lines around every block headings lists quotes code fences tables it costs nothing and removes most parser disagreements be consistent one bullet marker one emphasis marker style headings fenced code with language tags one h1 no skipped levels good for readers screen readers and seo alike write real alt text on every image not just a filename preview before you publish paste your draft into the live editor and the preview updates on every keystroke common mistakes almost every markdown bug in the wild is one of a short list check these first heading missing space after won t render bold spaces inside markers won t render 1 item use 1 not 1 for portability nested item 2 space nesting fails in some renderers use 4 text list item no blank line before the list may not render when a document renders wrong work through this in order look for a missing space after a or after a list marker look for a missing blank line above a list a quote or a fence check that every code fence and every emphasis pair is closed check that nested list items are indented four spaces not two paste the broken section into the live preview and delete half at a time until it works what these mistakes share is that none of them raises an error they simply render as something you did not intend quietly that is why one glance at a preview beats an afternoon of hunting for the cause from here keep the markdown syntax reference bookmarked for daily lookups and learn the gfm extensions you will meet on github when you need data in rows and columns our tables guide covers alignment escaping pipes and everything else tables can do frequently asked questions which markdown flavor should i learn learn the core syntax in this guide first it works everywhere then add github flavored markdown gfm which contributes tables task ...
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