Markdown cheat sheet — the syntax everyone should know

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that lets you add formatting to plain text. Created by John Gruber in 2004, it's now the standard for README files, documentation, blog posts, notes, and countless other writing contexts. The key idea is that Markdown is readable as-is — the syntax is intuitive enough that you can understand a document even before it's rendered.

This cheat sheet covers every syntax element you'll use day to day, with the Markdown input on the left and the rendered result described on the right.

Headings

Headings are created with the # character. The number of hashes determines the heading level, from H1 (largest) to H6 (smallest). Always leave a space between the hash and the heading text.

Bold, italic and strikethrough

Emphasis is applied by wrapping text in asterisks or underscores. Asterisks are more universally supported and are the recommended choice.

Unordered lists

Create bullet lists with a -, *, or + followed by a space. Nest items by indenting with two or four spaces.

Ordered lists

Use numbers followed by a period and a space. The actual numbers don't have to be in order — Markdown renumbers them automatically — but starting with 1. is clearest.

Links

Links use the format [link text](URL). You can optionally add a title that appears on hover: [link text](URL "Title"). For bare URLs, wrap in angle brackets: <https://example.com>.

Images

Images follow the same syntax as links, but with an exclamation mark prefix: ![alt text](image-url). The alt text is important for accessibility and is shown when the image fails to load.

Inline code and code blocks

Wrap a word or phrase in backticks for inline code: `variable`. For multi-line code blocks, use three backticks on their own line. Optionally specify a language after the opening backticks for syntax highlighting.

Blockquotes

Prefix a line with > to create a blockquote. Nest blockquotes by adding more > characters. Blockquotes can contain other Markdown elements like bold text and lists.

Tables

Tables use pipe characters (|) to separate columns and hyphens to create the header separator row. Colons in the separator row control column alignment.

Use :--- for left-align, ---: for right-align, and :---: for centre-align in the separator row.

Horizontal rules

Create a horizontal dividing line using three or more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on their own line. Leave a blank line before and after to avoid it being interpreted as a heading.

Escaping special characters

If you need to display a character that Markdown would normally interpret as formatting — like *, #, [, or ` — prefix it with a backslash.

Quick reference summary