Alex Lopez

Overview

What Is Markdown?

As indicated on the official Markdown Guide, Markdown is a lightweight markup language that can be used to add formatting elements to plain text documents.

Ok… what is a markup language?

Markup languages are just a type of encoding that refers to a set of symbols inserted into a text document that will cause manipulation to the structure, formatting and the relationship of the entire document.

You probably know a markup language and do not even realize it. It tends to be one of those things that you read about and think, “I have no idea what that means…”

Some examples of commonly used markup languages are:

Why Markdown?

Markdown can be used for about anything you can think of when it comes to documentation.

I personally use markdown for note-taking at work, along with school. The power duo of Markdown and the use of GitHub makes reading and taking notes limitless.

You can use Markdown with your favorite IDE (integrated development environment) and streamline your notes across multiple platforms with ease. You are able to make changes to the document with simple formatting and use of symbols.

Use a cheat sheet, this is great to have open while you are testing and playing around with Markdown.

Follow my development GitHub for more tips and tricks.

Developmental Courses for Major (Computer Science; concentration in software engineering)