What is it? In short,

“Markdown” is two things: a plain text markup syntax, and a software tool that converts the plain text markup to HTML for publishing on the web.

If you are a web writer and don’t want to get interrupted in the flow of writing, Markdown is for you. Ever since I have switched to it for writing, it just makes sense.

How does it work? Allow me to explain…

If you want to write a paragraph, you type it out like this:

this is a paragraph

which outputs:

this is a paragraph

If you want to emphasis, then you can do this

*normal emphasis with asterisks*

_normal emphasis with underscore_

**strong emphasis with asterisks**

__strong emphasis with underscore__

This converts it to:

normal emphasis with asterisks

normal emphasis with underscore

strong emphasis with asterisks

strong emphasis with underscore

Headers? Sure, type it out like this:

# Header 1

or

Header 1
========

It will produce:

Header 1

If you want to use header 2 or 3. Type it out like this:

## Header 2
### Header 3

The results:

Header 2

Header 3

Links? Easy peasy!

For inline style:

[Craig Butcher](http://legobot.co.uk/)

or

[Craig Butcher](http://legobot.co.uk/ "My website")

Makes this: Legobot

For Reference style:

Incredible nonsense from [Craig Butcher][cb].

[cb]: http://legobot.co.uk “Legobot”

shows: Incredible nonsense from Craig Butcher

This is just a glimpse of what you can do with Markdown and I would recommend it highly.

Keen to get started? Grab this plugin and for further information to build lists, block quotes, etc. Go to John Gruber’s Markdown.

Enjoy!