Using Markdown

Skip to the cheatsheet

If you edited content on last year’s site, you’re probably already familiar with Markdown. If not, the CommonMark organization (the group that maintains the official Markdown standard) does a great job of introducing it:

Markdown is a simple way to format text that looks great on any device. It doesn’t do anything fancy like change the font size, color, or type — just the essentials, using keyboard symbols you already know.

Put another way, Markdown is not a programming language or syntax. It is a method for writing plain text to convey things like emphasis, heading hierarchy and linking with simple symbols instead of code. For example, you can wrap text in _an underscore_ to denote emphasis in italics, or you can use **two asterisks** to denote emphasis in bold.

The CommonMark site includes a lot of great resources to help you learn to write using Markdown, linked below. We’ve also provided a simple cheatsheet to help get you started.

CommonMark Resources:
Reference Sheet | Interactive Tutorial | Parsing Demo

Cheatsheet

The Basics

Show Result

Separate paragraphs by a single blank line.

This is a new paragraph.

Use _one underscore_ for italic text.  
Use **two asterisks** for bold text.

-----

Use three or more hyphens or asterisks, with a blank line above and
below, to denote a horizontal rule.

Separate paragraphs by a single blank line.

This is a new paragraph.

Use one underscore for italic text.
Use two asterisks for bold text.

Use three or more hyphens or asterisks, with a blank line above and below, to denote a horizontal rule.

Headings

Show Result

Hashes (#) at the beginning of a line denote a heading. Use 1-6 hashes
for the corresponding heading level.

# Heading 1

## Heading 2

### Heading 3

#### Heading 4

##### Heading 5

###### Heading 6

Hashes (#) at the beginning of a line denote a heading. Use 1-6 hashes for the corresponding heading level.

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Links

Show Result

Here is a [regular inline link](http://google.com). The link display
text is placed in brackets, and the URL is placed in parentheses
immediately after the brackets.

This is a [reference-style link][ref]. You can use a reference
identifier (here "ref") in brackets instead of the full URL in
parentheses. As long as that reference is defined (see below)
_anywhere_ in the document, the link will be created.

[ref]: http://google.com

Here is a regular inline link. The link display text is placed in brackets, and the URL is placed in parentheses immediately after the brackets.

This is a reference-style link. You can use a reference identifier in brackets instead of the full URL in parentheses. As long as that reference is defined anywhere in the document, the link will be created.

Lists

Show Result

## Ordered Lists

1. Item one. Numbers must be followed by a period, not another
   character.
2. Item two.
3. Item three.

## Unordered lists

- Item one. Unordered lists can use a hyphen (-) or an
  asterisk(*) to mark items.
* Item two.
* Item three.

Ordered lists

Item one. Numbers must be followed by a period, not another character.
Item two.
Item three.

Unordered lists

Item one. Unordered lists can use a hyphen (-) or an asterisk(*) to mark items.
Item two.
Item three.