Markdown cheat sheet: every syntax you'll actually use

A reference guide · about 6 min read

Markdown is a way of formatting plain text so it turns into nicely styled documents — headings, bold text, lists, links, tables — without ever leaving your keyboard for a mouse. It was created in 2004 by John Gruber, and a later extension called GitHub-Flavored Markdown (GFM) added the bits people use most today: tables, task lists, and fenced code. This page is a practical reference to the syntax you'll actually reach for, with examples you can copy straight into the converter.

Headings

Put one to six # characters at the start of a line. One # is the biggest (the document title); six is the smallest.

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3

Leave a blank line before a heading. Use headings to give a document structure — it makes long documents far easier to scan, and in a PDF it's what turns a wall of text into something navigable.

Bold, italic, and strikethrough

*italic* or _italic_
**bold** or __bold__
***bold and italic***
~~strikethrough~~

Renders as: italic, bold, and struck-through text. Strikethrough (~~ ~~) is a GFM addition, so it needs a converter that supports GFM.

Lists

For a bulleted list, start each line with -, *, or +. For a numbered list, use 1., 2., and so on — the actual numbers don't have to be right, Markdown renumbers them for you.

- First item
- Second item
  - Indented sub-item (two spaces)

1. Step one
2. Step two
3. Step three

To nest a list, indent the child items by two spaces (or a tab).

Task lists

A GFM checklist — great for to-dos and requirements:

- [x] Done
- [ ] Not done yet

Links and images

[link text](https://example.com)
[link with a title](https://example.com "hover text")

![alt text](image.png)
![alt text](https://example.com/photo.jpg)

The only difference between a link and an image is the leading !. The text in square brackets for an image is the “alt text” — a description used by screen readers and shown if the image can't load. Always write meaningful alt text.

Tables

Tables come from GFM. Separate columns with pipes (|) and put a divider row of dashes under the header. Colons in the divider row set alignment.

| Item    | Qty | Price |
|:--------|----:|------:|
| Cable   |  10 | $2.50 |
| Adapter |   4 | $7.00 |

:--- is left-aligned, ---: is right-aligned (useful for numbers), and :--: is centred. The columns don't need to line up perfectly in the source — Markdown sorts that out.

Code

For a short snippet inside a sentence, wrap it in single backticks: `like this`. For a block of code, fence it with three backticks, and name the language after the opening fence to get syntax highlighting:

```python
def greet(name):
    return f"Hello, {name}!"
```

Naming the language (python, js, bash, json, and so on) is what lets a converter colour the keywords and strings.

Blockquotes

> This is a quote.
>
> It can span multiple paragraphs.

Start each line with >. Quotes are handy for callouts and for quoting sources.

Horizontal rule

Three or more dashes on their own line draw a divider:

---

Line breaks and paragraphs

A blank line starts a new paragraph. If you need a line break within a paragraph, end the line with two spaces, or use a backslash \ at the end of the line. This trips up a lot of people — pressing Enter once usually does not create a visible line break in the output.

Escaping characters

If you want a literal character that Markdown would otherwise treat as formatting — say a real asterisk or underscore — put a backslash in front of it:

\*not italic\*
\# not a heading

A quick reference table

That covers everything most documents need. When you're ready to turn a Markdown file into something you can share, paste it into the converter and save it as a PDF — the tables, code and checkboxes above all carry through.