Markdown 101: Better Content, Faster

Introduction

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that is used to add formatting to plain text. It is popular among programmers, bloggers, and writers because of its simplicity and ease of use. Markdown is designed to be easy to read and write in plain text and at the same time to be easily converted into formatted HTML.

With the help of Markdown, you can format text, add headings, create ordered and unordered lists, insert links and images, add bold and italic formatting, and more.

Markdown is widely supported by many platforms such as GitHub, Markdown editors, Slack, and others. It's a great way for developers to write documentation, readme files, and even blog posts.

Syntax in Markdown

Here are some common Markdown syntaxes with examples:

1. Headings: add a number of # before your text to indicate the level of the heading.

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

1. Bold and Italics: use ** to add bold and * to add italic styling.

**bold text**
*italic text*

1. Lists: use - to add an unordered list and use numbers to add an ordered list.

- First item
- Second item

1. First item
2. Second item

1. Links: use [link text](URL) to add a hyperlink.

[Hashnode](https://hashnode.com/)

1. Images: use ![alt text](image URL) to add an image.

![Markdown](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Markdown-mark.svg/263px-Markdown-mark.svg.png)

1. Blockquotes: use > before your text to add a blockquote.

> This is a blockquote.

Markdown is a quick way to add basic formatting to your documentation, articles, and blog posts.

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Advanced Markdown Techniques

Footnotes

Markdown supports footnotes, a way to add additional information to your text without cluttering up the main body. Here's an example:

Here's some text with a footnote.[^1]

[^1]: Here's the footnote text.

The result will look like this:

Here's some text with a footnote.¹

[^1]: Here's the footnote text.

Abbreviations

You can use abbreviations in Markdown to shorten long words or phrases. Here's how:

*[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language

HTML is an abbreviation for *[Hyper Text Markup Language][].

The result will be:

HTML is an abbreviation for Hyper Text Markup Language.

Task lists

Markdown allows you to create task lists that can be checked off as you complete them. Here's an example:

- [x] Write article
- [ ] Edit article
- [ ] Submit article

The result will look like a to-do list:

• [x] Write article

• [ ] Edit article

• [ ] Submit article

Tables

You can create tables in Markdown using pipes and hyphens. Here's an example:

| Name | Age | Occupation |
| --- | --- | --- |
| John | 28 | Engineer |
| Jane | 32 | Designer |

The result will look like this:

Definition Lists

You can create definition lists using double colons. Here's an example:

Term 1
:: Definition 1a
:: Definition 1b

Term 2
:: Definition 2

The result will look like this:

Term 1

Definition 1a

Definition 1b

Term 2

Definition 2

These are just a few examples of the more advanced Markdown techniques. Markdown offers a lot of flexibility and can be used creatively to produce well-formatted documents.

Hope you had a good reading experience.

Feedback in the comment section would be immensely appreciated.

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Alright folks, that's all from my side.

This is Utkarsh Krishna

Signing-Off

Cheers.