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Introductory Guide to Markdown for Documentation Writers-Document360

Introductory Guide to Markdown for Documentation Writers

Category: Technical Documentation

Last updated on Jan 10, 2024

Introduction

You may well have heard of Markdown, but it’s okay if you haven’t.
The typical way that users first might encounter Markdown is through formatting text on internet message boards. You might have encountered it used on GitHub in readme files, at the very least. A professional use for Markdown is to write technical documentation.
Technical writers have a dazzling array of options for producing their documentation. That’s why many writers opt for Markdown – it’s easy to use, and adaptable between different platforms (at least, in theory).

Table of Contents

1. What is Markdown?

You might be wondering, what the heck is Markdown anyway?
Markdown is a lightweight markup language. It allows you to style a digital text document using typical formatting techniques: for example, headings, emphasis, lists, images, and links. Markdown files are stored as .md or .markdown. Also, Markdown can be optionally converted into XHTML or HTML to display nicely in a browser.

Some of the many uses of Markdown are readme files, writing messages in online discussion forums, creating rich text using a plain text editor, emails, and technical documentation. Popular sites that use Markdown include GitHub, Trello, Reddit, SourceForge, and StackExchange, among many others.

You, too, may want to use Markdown for formatting your documentation. It can be hosted by Static Site Generators such as Hugo which are linked with a text editor, or you can use an end-to-end proprietary solution to produce your Markdown files.

This light-weight markup language is a compromise between restrictive WYSIWYG editors, and formatting content directly in HTML. Writers can have as much control over the presentation of their information without resorting to full HTML tagging. At the same time, Markdown parsers also support dropping in blocks of HTML code that add to Markdown’s limited syntax, in case you want to achieve a more complex design 

2. The back end of Markdown

There’s a little more to Markdown than meets the eye. This section helps you understand what’s going on under the hood, in between formatting your Markdown files and the final rendered output for the web.

You don’t necessarily need to know what’s going on behind the scenes, unless you use a combination of tools like a text editor and static site generator, but sometimes it’s good to know!

This process is a mixture of learning the Markdown syntax, and then understanding how that file is then rendered.

1. Create your Markdown file using a text editor or specialised Markdown application
2. Open your Markdown file in a specialised Markdown application
3. Convert your Markdown file to an HTML document using the Markdown application and parser
4. View your HTML file in a web browser

Alternatively, there are resources out there (like Pandoc) which can convert your Markdown files into other formats, including DOCX, PDF, RTF, ODT, or EPUB. For example, you can convert your Markdown files into an ebook, with each Markdown file functioning as an individual chapter.

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3. History of Markdown

Markdown was developed by John Gruber in collaboration with Aaron Schwartz in 2004, so it’s got a little bit of history. Gruber was tired of how complicated it was to format his web content using the standard HTML. That’s why he came up with Markdown.
“The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.” – John Gruber

Before Markdown, all that was available was other markup languages like HTML and LaTeX. Markdown arose as a lightweight markup language for web writers, many of whom are also developers. That makes Markdown an especially good solution for technical documentation that also requires collaboration with development teams.

Back to the history. Conflicts soon arose concerning Markdown, which suffered from a lack of standardisation for the syntax. There was no
Markdown specification, and Gruber remained unwilling to extend the syntax. People ended up developing their own, independent, implementations (also known as “flavours”). This led to problems converting Markdown from one system to another. For example, it’s more difficult than it should be to convert a GitHub wiki to docbook using Pandoc, due to incompatible syntax deviations.

Unlike HTML, there is no internet standard for Markdown syntax. So, CommonMark was born as an unofficial initiative established to standardise all the different “flavours” of Markdown. CommonMark is a standard, unambiguous syntax specification for Markdown, alongside a suite of comprehensive tests that validate implementations of Markdown against the specification.

That very short summary brings us up to today.

4. Markdown Flavours

As we just mentioned, the unstandardised nature of Markdown has given rise to a number of popular “flavours” – essentially, extensions of the original Markdown syntax. The reason for this is to add extra functionality not available in the original syntax, such as tables, references, and syntax highlighting.

Some flavours of Markdown have become very commonly used, such as the GitHub flavour, which is called GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM). It includes extra features such as tables, programming language selection, and syntax colouring.

Taking into account the Markdown flavours, your Markdown files may not always be compatible with different editors if they don’t support the extra syntax used. This lack of consistency among implementations of Markdown is one of the main issues that people have with it.

Here’s a list of the most common flavours of Markdown available today.

5. Why Learn Markdown?

Despite having some issues, Markdown is used by many people. You don’t even have to be a developer to pick up the basics. The advantage of Markdown is that once you know how it works, it’s very easy to write. It’s intuitively easy to pick up because it’s based on email formatting conventions that many people have been exposed to already.

Markdown offers a smoother workflow than traditional publishing systems. Unlike in a normal writing User Interface, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you don’t have to stop writing to select formatting buttons. Formatting is included in-line with your text, and it looks like the effect it’s intended to create. In other words, a list looks like a list, and **emphasis** looks like emphasis.

You can also easily read Markdown in its raw state, unlike for example raw HTML, which is full of tags. The Markdown syntax flows perfectly with the rest of your writing, and it’s intuitively clear what the syntax means.

Markdown files are portable, and can be opened in any editor compatible with Markdown, in case you want to change applications. Although in practice, this may not be as simple, it’s a good option to have. Markdown is platform-independent, which means you can create Markdown files in any text editor. It’s useful across many different websites and applications.

It’s a reusable skill. Markdown is versatile, so you learn it once, and you can use it for lots of different activities. You can use Markdown to take notes, create content for a website, or produce print-ready documents.

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6. Basics of Markdown

It’s worth learning the basic Markdown syntax outlined by John Gruber, which is supported by the majority of Markdown applications. You’re likely to find the syntax of Markdown relatively intuitive to pick up. It’s also possible to write directly in HTML in any Markdown file, if you prefer.

You can get started right now with Markdown in the browser using a tool such as Dillinger.

Headings

All Markdown files should contain headers. You need a level 1 header for the title of your Markdown file, and at least level 2 headers for the subheadings within the body text. Headings make your text more readable and help to break up the topics.

In Markdown, headings are formatted with hashes (#) in front of the line containing your heading. You can use up to six hashes, with the number of hashes corresponding to a heading level.

Your text will look like this:
# Heading level 1
## Heading level 2
### Heading level 3
#### Heading level 4
##### Heading level 5
###### Heading level 6

Paragraphs

When writing your Markdown body text, you’ll likely want to split your information up into paragraphs (with a noticeable gap between each paragraph).

Paragraphs are divided by a blank line (a line containing no characters) between consecutive paragraphs.

Your text will look like this:
Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Line breaks

Sometimes, you’ll want to split your information up by inserting a new line, with less space than you’d get from formatting as a paragraph. This is called a line break.

To insert a line break into your Markdown file, finish your line with at least two spaces and press return. This will render a new line for your text.

Your text will look like this:
Line 1
Line 2

Emphasis

When writing your content in Markdown, you might want to place a bit more emphasis on certain words or phrases. The first way you can emphasise your text is in italics.

You can make your text italic by wrapping your text with one asterisk on each side (alternatively, you can use underscores in place of the asterisks). Once your application detects the second asterisk, your formatting for this element is considered “closed”.
Your text will look like this:
*This text is italic*
_This text is also italic_

Bold formatting provides a slightly heavier emphasis than italics, but it works in exactly the same way. This time, use two asterisks to wrap the text you want to make bold (alternatively, you can use underscores in place of asterisks).
Your text will look like this:
**This text is bold**
__This text is also bold__

If you really want to make a point, you can make your text simultaneously bold and italic to give it even more weight! To make your text bold and italic, use three asterisks (or three underscores) to wrap your word or phrase.
Your text will look like this:
***This text is italic and bold.***
___This text is also italic and bold___

Links (inline)

Sometimes we want to link to external websites when writing Markdown content. There’s a simple way to do this using two sets of brackets.
To format an inline link in Markdown, you use square brackets to wrap your link text. Place the square-bracket wrapped link text alongside parentheses containing your URL (make sure you don’t include a space between the link text and the link).
Your text will look like this:

[This is link text](This is a link URL)

If you want to add title to your link, insert your alt text next to the link inside quotation marks
Your text will look like this:
[This is link text](This is a link URL “This is a title”)

Note that if you want to link to a local file, within the same server as your other Markdown files, you can format your link with a forward slash followed by the relative URL.
Your text will look like this:
[This is link text](/This is a relative URL “This is a title”)

Images

A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. Inserting an image into your Markdown file is similar to the formatting for links.

Begin your image formatting with an exclamation mark. Next, use square brackets to wrap your image alt text, next to parentheses containing the URL for your image. Ensure there are no spaces between the exclamation mark, square brackets, or parentheses.

Your text will look like this:
![This is image text](this is an image URL)
When your Markdown file is rendered to HTML, the image will be embedded directly into the body text.

Lists

Unordered lists
Sometimes, you may want to format your content in lists to make it easier to read.

The first option is to use an unordered list, where each item on your list is preceded by a bullet point. Markdown allows you to format your lists with a number of different symbols: asterisks (*), hyphens (-) or plus signs (+).

It’s up to you to choose which symbol you prefer. The result you get is the same.
Here is an example list:
* This is a list item
* This is a list item
* This is a list item
* This is a list item

Ordered lists

Other times, you may want to present your information sequentially in ordered lists (1, 2, 3, and so on). Format your ordered lists by preceding each list item with a number, followed by a full stop and then a space.

In Markdown, it doesn’t matter which numbers you use to format your list, as the list will always render as 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Your text will look like this:
1. This is a list item
2. This is a list item
3. This is a list item
4. This is a list item

Blockquotes


Sometimes in Markdown, we will want to reference an external source using quotation marks. This is called a blockquote. You represent any blockquote by preceding the first line of the block quote with a greater-than sign or angle bracket (>). Gruber recommends inserting the angle bracket before every line of your blockquote.

Your text will look like this:
> This is a blockquote
> This is a blockquote
> This is a blockquote

7. Intermediate Markdown

Now you’ve got to grips with basic Markdown, you might want to attempt some slightly more advanced formatting.

Horizontal rules

A horizontal rule is a useful little element that you can use to visually split up blocks of text within your Markdown file. A horizontal rule is represented by three or more hyphens (-), asterisks (*), or underscores (_). Whichever symbol you use renders the same output.

Your text will look like this:

Code blocks and snippets


Code snippets
Often when we’re writing in Markdown, we need to reference snippets of code as examples. This is particularly common in technical documentation. Markdown allows you to format code snippets using backticks (`) that wrap your code snippet. The first backtick “opens” the snippet, and the second backtick “closes” it.

Your text will look like this:
`This is a code snippet`
Code blocks
Formatting code blocks is useful when you have a bigger chunk of code to include in your Markdown file. Format your code blocks by indenting every line of your code block using one tab, or four spaces.
This is a code block
This is a code block
This is a code block
Remember, some extensions of Markdown, such as GitHub Flavored Markdown, support programming language selection and syntax colouring. Original Markdown does not support these styles.

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Reference-style links

There may come a time in your Markdown writing career that you want to include reference-style links. Instead of inserting your URL inline alongside your link text, the link is listed elsewhere in the Markdown file (usually below the paragraph containing the link, or at the end of the document). Formatting your links in this way makes your Markdown content easier to read.
Format your reference-style links by enclosing your link text in square brackets, followed by your label in another set of square brackets. The label acts as an anchor.
Your text should look like this:
[This is link text][This is a label]
You format the second part of the link (placed at the end of the paragraph, or bottom of the file) using three attributes.
1. Your label in square brackets, followed by a colon and at least one space
2. Your link URL
3. An optional link title, enclosed in either double quotes, single quotes, or parentheses
Your text will look like this:
[This is a label]: This is an URL “This is a link title”
Most people will list their links in the order they are referenced within the file.

Escaping

Often in Markdown, you will need to include characters in your text (for example, and asterisk) that may be part of the Markdown syntax. You need to “escape” these characters so your Markdown application doesn’t read these characters as formatting.
You escape characters in Markdown using a backslash before the character, with no space in between.
Your text should look like this:
\*
You can escape any of these characters:
\ backslash
` backtick
* asterisk
_ underscore
{} curly braces
[] square brackets
() parentheses
# hash symbol
+ plus sign
– minus sign (hyphen)
. dot
! exclamation mark
Lists within blockquotes
Sometimes, you might want to insert a blockquote into your Markdown that contains another element, such as an unordered list. You need to nest your list formatting inside your blockquote formatting.
Format your blockquote using a greater-than sign (>) followed by a space, including a sign before every line of your block quote. Add your list formatting (*) just after your greater-than signs.
Your text should look like this:
> This is a blockquote
> * This is a list item within a blockquote
> * This is a list item within a blockquote
> * This is a list item within a blockquote

HTML

You can insert HTML elements directly into your Markdown file. For example, you may want to include a button. Insert your HTML exactly as you would in any other HTML document.
Your text should look like this:
<button>This is a button</button>
This formatting also works for your other Markdown syntax, such as emphasis. Instead of **This element is bold**, you could format it in HTML as <bold>This element is bold</bold>.

8. Markdown Editors

Markdown is supported by a variety of different systems, from text editors combined with Static Site Generators to dedicated Markdown web applications.
Some editors come built in with basic Markdown capabilities, even if they were not specifically designed for Markdown. Others are designed to extend the Markdown syntax, such as Ghost.
There are Markdown editors for different operating systems (MacOS, Linux, or Windows), or alternatively you can use a web-based application.
Here’s a compilation of some of the most popular Markdown editors organised by system:

MacOS

Windows

Linux

iOS/Android

Web

  • Blot.im – platform for blogging
  • Smallvictori.es – platform that makes a website using DropBox
  • StackEdit – in-browser Markdown editor that supports different Markdown flavours
  • Dillinger – browser-based Markdown editor
  • Ghost – browser-based blogging platform

Static Site Generators

  • Jekyll
  • Hugo
  • Docusaurus
    We’d also like to put forward our own Document360 knowledge base software, which offers a Markdown editor for formatting your documentation.

 

Final Remarks

There are many possibilities for your work in Markdown, beginning with simple note-taking, to blogging and progressing right through to professional technical documentation.
By learning the basics of Markdown, you are opening yourself up to smoother formatting and publishing. The number of applications supporting Markdown is only increasing, making it a very good choice for your documentation.
Why not trial Document360, which comes with an in-built Markdown editor, for your documentation 

Downloadable cheat sheet

Element Markdown Syntax
Heading # Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4
##### Heading 5
###### Heading 6
Paragraph

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Line break Line 1
Line 2
Emphasis *Italic*
**Bold**
***Italic and bold***
Inline link [Link text](Link URL “Link title”)
Image ![Image text](Image URL)
Unordered list * List item
* List item
* List item
Ordered list 1. List item
2. List item
3. List item
Blockquote > Block quote

Catherine Heath

Jan 31, 2020

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