Developed in 2004 by John Gruber, Markdown refers to both (1) a way of formatting text files, as well as (2) a Perl utility to convert Markdown files into HTML. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the first part and learn to write files using the Markdown syntax.
Plain text files have many advantages over other formats. For one, they are readable on virtually all devices. They have also withstood the test of time better than other file types – if you’ve ever tried to open a document saved in a legacy word processor format, you’ll be familiar with the compatibility challenges involved.
In this lesson, you will be introduced to Markdown, a plain text-based syntax for formatting documents. You will find out why it is used, how to format Markdown files, and how to preview Markdown-formatted documents on the web.
Markdown files are saved with the extension .md, and can be opened in a text editor such as TextEdit, Notepad, Sublime Text, or Vim. Many websites and publishing platforms also offer web-based editors and/or extensions for entering text using Markdown syntax.
Four levels of headings are available in Markdown, and are indicated by the number of "#" preceding the heading text. The above heading is the 4th level of heading.
- Fruits
- Apples
- Oranges
- Grapes
- Dairy
- Milk
- Cheese
- Finish Markdown tutorial
- Go to grocery store
- Prepare lunch
<html>
<head>
<title>Documentation Tutorial</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>This is a Markdown Tutorial
| Left | Center | Right |
|---|---|---|
| Apples | Red | 5000 |
| Bananas | Yellow | 75 |
