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

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


Alternatively to classic links like [CommonMark](https://commonmark.org), you can also use reference-style links, which allow you to refer to the target link with an arbitrary placeholder then declare the equivalence of the placeholder to your target link at the end of the file. This allows you to reuse a link in multiple places without repeating it.

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). Since this used to be the standard for early versions of commonMark, you may still see it in older documents.

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