Cheatsheets:Markdown

Quick reference for smart people — part of our dev cheatsheets collection.

Markdown is plain text with a few markers that a renderer turns into HTML. This page is a syntax reference for CommonMark, the standard. GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extensions are covered in the GFM extensions section.

New to Markdown? CommonMark interactive tutorial may interest you.

Basic example: Pancake recipe

Markdown source	Compiled to HTML	Rendered in the browser
# Pancakes A quick pancake recipe for two. ## Ingredients - 150 g flour - 250 ml milk ## Steps 1. Mix the flour and milk. 2. Cook the batter in a pan.	<h1>Pancakes</h1> <p>A quick pancake recipe for two.</p> <h2>Ingredients</h2> <ul> <li>150 g flour</li> <li>250 ml milk</li> </ul> <h2>Steps</h2> <ol type="1"> <li>Mix the flour and milk.</li> <li>Cook the batter in a pan.</li> </ol>	Pancakes A quick pancake recipe for two. Ingredients 150 g flour 250 ml milk Steps Mix the flour and milk. Cook the batter in a pan.

Paragraphs and line breaks

• Two paragraphs must be separated by a blank line.
• A single newline becomes a space when rendered.
• For a hard linebreak within a paragraph, use \

line one line two Rendered: line one line two

line one\ line two Rendered: line one line two

Headings

One to six # markers set the level.

Source	Level
# Pancakes	h1
## Ingredients	h2
...	...
###### Note	h6

A space between the last marker and the text is required:

Wrong (no space)	Right
#Pancakes Rendered: the line stays a paragraph and the # is literal: #Pancakes	# Pancakes Rendered: a level-1 heading: Pancakes

Emphasis

Source	Rendered
*italic* or _italic_	italic
**bold** or __bold__	bold
***both***	both

Emphasis needs word boundaries — underscores inside a word are literal, not emphasis.

Source foo_bar_baz renders as foo_bar_baz, not as "foobarbaz". Fix: use asterisks around whole words instead:

*foo bar* baz

Links and images

Inline links take the form [text](URL); images add a ! and an alt text: ![alt text](image.png).

Source	Rendered
[CommonMark](https://commonmark.org)	CommonMark


Reference-style links separate the link text from the URL: [text][ref] in the text, and the definition [ref]: URL anywhere in the document. Here ... stands for the rest of the document between the two snippets:

Source	Rendered
[CommonMark][cm] ... [cm]: https://commonmark.org	CommonMark

Lists

Unordered markers -, * and + are interchangeable. Ordered lists number from the first item's number, whatever you write:

3. Mix the flour and milk.
4. Cook the batter in a pan.

Rendered:

3. Mix the flour and milk.
4. Cook the batter in a pan.

The numbering starts at 3, as typed — the first item's number sets the start.

Nest with an indentation:

- fruit
  - apple
  - pear
- veg

Rendered:

• fruit
  • apple
  • pear
• veg

A blank line between items makes a loose list — each item is wrapped in a paragraph:

Without (tight)	With a blank line (loose)
- fruit - veg Rendered: fruit veg	- fruit - veg Rendered: fruit veg

Code

Inline code — backticks; when the code itself contains a backtick, use two backticks:

Source	Rendered
`pip install markdown`	pip install markdown
`` `expr` ``	`expr`

Fenced blocks — three backticks; the word after the opening fence enables syntax highlighting:

```python
print("hi")
```

Rendered:

print("hi")

Legacy syntax: indented code blocks. Four leading spaces also produce a code block, without highlighting:

    print("hi")

Rendered:

print("hi")

This form is not recommended — it is easy to break (a blank line ends it, and the indentation must change inside lists). You may still see it in older documents; use fenced blocks instead.

Blockquotes

A line starting with > is a blockquote; an empty > keeps paragraphs separate inside the quote.

> quoted line
>
> second quoted line

Rendered:

quoted line

second quoted line

Nested quotes — >>:

> outer
>
> > inner

Rendered:

outer

inner

GFM extensions

GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) used on GitHub and increasingly elsewhere, extends commonMark syntax with the following additions:

Strikethrough — two tildes:

Source	Rendered
~~struck~~	struck

Tables

| Left | Center | Right |
|:-----|:------:|------:|
| a    | b      | c     |

When rendered, the first column is left-aligned (:-----), the second center-aligned (:-----:) and the third right-aligned (-----:):

Left	Center	Right
a	b	c

Task lists

- [x] mix the batter
- [ ] cook the pancakes

Rendered:

☑ mix the batter
☐ cook the pancakes

Escaping

A backslash makes the next character literal:

Source	Rendered
\*not italic\*	*not italic*
\# not a heading	# not a heading

Markdown inside an HTML block is not parsed — raw HTML passes through untouched.

<div>
*bold?* no, raw
</div>

renders the *bold?* literally. Fix: don't wrap Markdown in raw HTML at all:

*bold?* yes

Further reading

• CommonMark spec — the official standard
• CommonMark interactive tutorial — the recommended tutorial
• GFM spec — tables, task lists, strikethrough
• Markdown Guide — a friendly reference