Markdown editor

The Markdown markup language is readily used by bloggers, writers, editors and journalists. The convenience and simplicity of the service is appreciated by all people working with texts.

Pros and cons of Markdown

Benefits

• Universality. Documents can be created in txt format, such files can be opened in any editor and on any platform.
• Easy. Even if you have never used Markdown before, it will take you about 10 minutes to master this language. It's very simple - see for yourself.
• Great set of tools. You can work with online, mobile or desktop tools. The choice is wide enough to satisfy the tastes of aesthetes, geeks and writers.
• Convertibility. Markdown files can be easily transferred to pdf, doc, odt formats with formatting preserved.

Disadvantages

• You can't use beautiful fonts in documents. You'll need additional tools for full page layout.
• You have to remember a few rules and special characters. Violation of the conditions leads to changes in formatting.

Markdown Reference

Basic syntax

Markdown text processing uses a set of characters to be inserted before and/or after words and phrases.

• Headings (h1–h6) — "#". The hash is needed when designing headers. The heading level depends on the number of bars. In total, six levels are allowed and, accordingly, #.
• Simple text formatting is "*" or "_". Asterisks and underscores are used to make text italic or bold. For example, one "*" or "_" is italic, two characters are bold, three characters are bold italic.
• Quotes are ">". Place a > in front of each line of a quote.
• Numbered and Bulleted Lists—"-", "+", or a number. Precede each item with a hyphen, plus, or number followed by a dot. Mixed lists are formed with one press of Tab or two presses of the spacebar.
• Horizontal lines are "*", "-" or "_". Type one of these characters three or more times to insert a horizontal line into your document. If there is text on the line above, it will become the first level heading. Typically a line is used to separate large chunks of text.
• Links and images. It's done like this: [link title](link itself). To insert an image, put "!": . Links to pictures can be from the Internet or from a hard drive. In this case, the signature can be omitted.
• Escaping characters - "\". If you need to insert a character related to Markdown syntax into text and avoid formatting, you must precede the technical character with a backslash - "\".

Extended syntax

Editors that support GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown) use more complex elements.

• Strikethrough text: double tildes "~~" at the beginning and end of the text.
• Tables: "|" and "-", as well as ":" to align the contents of the cells.
• Todo lists: [ ] failed task, [X] completed task.
• Emoji: corresponding code in colons (:kissing_heart:).
• Code: "`" (gravis) on both sides. "```" is a block of code (or four spaces at the beginning of each line).

Markdown is definitely a useful tool. With it, you can organize notes, quickly design and publish blogs, create shopping lists and work tasks, format texts in some instant messengers. In all cases, working with texts is much easier if you have Markdown.