Introduction to Markdown

MATH-7360 Data Analysis

Reference

Markdown Guide

What is Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents. Created by John Gruber in 2004, Markdown is now one of the world’s most popular markup languages.

• Using Markdown is different than using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.

• In an application like Microsoft Word, you click buttons to format words and phrases, and the changes are visible immediately.

• When you create a Markdown-formatted file, you add Markdown syntax to the text to indicate which words and phrases should look different.

The screen shot below shows a Markdown file displayed in MacDown on Mac OS.

Why use Markdown

Why use Markdown instead of a WYSIWYG editor? There are acouple of reasons.

• Markdown can be used for everything.

  • Website. (Actually, Markdown + Jekyll + GitHub)

  • Document

  • Notes, Books, presentations

• Markdown syntax is easy. Markdown Cheat sheet

• Markdown translates to HTML for free.

This is a four-part process:

1. Create a Markdown file using a text editor or a dedicated Markdown application. The file should have an .md or .markdown extension.

2. Open the Markdown file in a Markdown application.

   • Markdown applications use something called a Markdown processor (also commonly referred to as a “parser” or an “implementation”) to take the Markdown-formatted text and output it to HTML format.

3. Use the Markdown application to convert the Markdown file to an HTML document.

4. View the HTML file in a web browser or use the Markdown application to convert it to another file format, like PDF.