This article covers all the fundamental Markdown syntax you need to write rich, well-structured content. Every feature includes a working example so you can see exactly how it renders.

Headings

Markdown supports six levels of headings. Use # symbols to define the heading level.

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 2

Heading Level 3

Heading Level 4

Heading Level 5

Heading Level 6

Each heading creates an anchor link automatically, making it easy to share and link directly to specific sections. For accessibility, avoid skipping heading levels — go from h2 to h3, not from h2 to h5.

Text Formatting

Markdown provides several inline formatting options:

You can combine these freely:

• This is bold and italic mixed in a sentence.
• This text has a deleted part and a replacement.
• Use inline code inside bold context: the config.ts file.

Lists

Unordered Lists

Use -, *, or + to create unordered lists:

• First item
• Second item
• Third item
  • Nested item A
  • Nested item B
    • Deeply nested item
    • Another deeply nested item
  • Nested item C
• Fourth item

Ordered Lists

Use numbers followed by a period:

1. First step
2. Second step
3. Third step
   1. Sub-step 3a
   2. Sub-step 3b
      1. Sub-sub-step
      2. Another sub-sub-step
   3. Sub-step 3c
4. Fourth step

Mixed Lists

You can nest ordered lists inside unordered lists and vice versa:

• Project setup
  1. Initialize repository
  2. Install dependencies
  3. Configure environment
• Development
  1. Create components
  2. Write tests
  3. Review code
• Deployment
  1. Build project
  2. Run tests
  3. Deploy to production

List with Paragraphs

List items can contain multiple paragraphs by indenting:

1. First item with a long description.

   This is a continuation paragraph under the first item. Notice the blank line and indentation.

2. Second item.

   Another paragraph here. Lists can contain any block-level content when properly indented.

Links and Images

Inline Links

Visit Astro’s official site to learn more about the framework.

You can also add a title attribute: Astro Documentation.

Reference-Style Links

For cleaner text, use reference-style links:

Read the Astro guide or check the Tailwind docs for styling.

Auto-linked URLs

Simply paste a URL and it becomes clickable: https://github.com

Images

Standard image syntax:

Image with title text:

Linked Images

Blockquotes

Simple Blockquote

Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax. It was created by John Gruber in 2004.

Multi-Paragraph Blockquote

The first paragraph of the quote.

The second paragraph of the quote. Use a > on the blank line between paragraphs to keep them in the same blockquote.

Nested Blockquotes

This is the outer blockquote.

This is a nested blockquote. It goes one level deeper.

And this is nested even further — three levels deep!

Back to the first level.

Blockquote with Other Elements

Blockquote with a Heading

• Item one
• Item two

The quote can contain bold, italic, and code formatting, as well as lists and other Markdown elements.

Horizontal Rules

You can create horizontal rules with three or more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores:

All three render identically. Use them to visually separate sections of content.

Tables

Simple Table

Aligned Table

Use colons to align columns:

Complex Table

Table with Formatting

Task Lists

Task lists (checkboxes) are great for tracking progress:

• Set up Astro project
• Configure Tailwind CSS
• Create blog layout
• Add search functionality
• Implement dark mode toggle
• Write documentation

Nested Task Lists

• Phase 1: Foundation
  • Project scaffolding
  • Design system setup
  • Base components
• Phase 2: Features
  • Blog post rendering
  • Tag filtering
  • Pagination
• Phase 3: Polish
  • Performance optimization
  • Accessibility audit
  • Cross-browser testing

Footnotes

Footnotes let you add references without cluttering the text.

Markdown was created by John Gruber¹ and Aaron Swartz² in 2004. It has since become one of the most popular markup languages for writing content on the web³.

The original Markdown specification¹ was intentionally minimal. Many extended syntaxes like GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM)⁴ have expanded on the original.

Emoji Support

You can use emoji shortcodes in your Markdown:

• 🚀 Launch day!
• ⭐ Featured content
• :book: Documentation
• 💡 Tip of the day
• ⚠️ Important notice
• ✔️ Task completed
• ❌ Failed test
• ❤️ Community love
• 🎉 Celebration
• 🚧 Work in progress

Emoji in Context

💡 Tip: Use emoji sparingly in technical writing. They work great for status indicators and casual blog posts.

Here’s a quick project status:

Wrapping Up

This article covered the core Markdown syntax you’ll use daily. Markdown’s simplicity is its strength — a few symbols transform plain text into rich, structured documents. For more advanced features like math formulas, code highlighting, and alerts, see the Markdown Extended Features article.