Markdown Cheat Sheet for Beginners and Experts

Overview

This guide covers markdown cheat sheet for beginners and experts in clear, practical terms. It covers the key concepts, recommended steps, common limitations, and useful checks so you can make a better-informed decision.

Markdown is an easy-to-learn markup language used to format plain text documents. Even if you have no experience with the language, Markdown is so simple that you can learn it in less than 10 minutes.

For example, if you want to make a word appear in italics, just surround it with asterisks (e. g. *test* becomes test ). This also works for entire sentences or even paragraphs. If you want to create a bulleted list, just start each line with a hyphen. Simple, right?

There are many Markdown editing apps out there, and you can even use Markdown in Microsoft Word. Check out the Markdown cheat sheet below for a quick overview of what you can do with it.

Cheat sheet Markdown

Note: Almost all versions of Markdown support basic elements, but extended elements are only supported by more advanced forms of Markdown, including CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown.

What Is the Markdown Flavor version?

The original Markdown specification was released in 2004. However, despite its innovation, many users felt that the original Markdown's feature set was too limited for anything more than simple document formatting.

As more websites adopted Markdown as their preferred method of entering text (e. g. blog posts, comments, forum posts, etc.), they began adding and supporting their own Markdown markup components. Notable sites include Reddit, GitHub, Stack Exchange, etc.

Eventually, users began pushing for a standardized set of formatting elements, leading to the creation of even more versions of Markdown such as CommonMark, MultiMarkdown, Markdown Extra, GitHub Flavored Markdown, etc.

In short, once you learn the basic elements outlined in the original Markdown specification, you should be able to pick up any other version of Markdown with ease. The variations are subtle and are often only useful in very specific use cases.

If you're still looking for a markdown editor, try Typora or a productivity tool like Notion.

Key Takeaways

Use the guidance above as a practical reference for markdown cheat sheet for beginners and experts. Check compatibility, follow the steps carefully, and verify important details with official documentation when software, security, accounts, health, or purchases are involved.