Introduction to Markdown on GitHub

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents. It’s a great tool for writing documentation, READMEs, or blog posts.

Features of GitHub Markdown

1. Headers

Use # symbols to create headers of different levels:

# H1 Header
## H2 Header
### H3 Header
#### H4 Header
  • Item 1
  • Item 2
    • Subitem 2.1
    • Subitem 2.2

Footnotes

This is a sentence with a footnote[1].

Benefits of Using Markdown

Simplicity

Markdown is straightforward to learn and use. Its syntax is intuitive and doesn't require extensive knowledge[2].

Portability

Since Markdown files are plain text, they can be viewed and edited on almost any device. This makes them highly portable and versatile[3].

Integration

Markdown integrates well with many platforms, including GitHub, GitLab, and static site generators. Its compatibility allows for a seamless writing and publishing experience[4].

Task Lists

  • Completed task
  • Incomplete task

  1. My reference (this will show in the bottom of the page). ↩

  2. To add line breaks within a footnote, prefix new lines with 2 spaces. Try it out! ↩

  3. Text editors, IDEs, and even some web browsers support Markdown natively. ↩

  4. Static site generators like Jekyll and Hugo heavily rely on Markdown for content creation. ↩