What is Markdown?

Markdown is a plain text format grammar designed to make writing on the Internet easier. The idea behind Markdown is that plain text documents should be readable without tag obfuscation, but there should still be ways to add text modifiers such as lists, bold, italics, etc. It is a replacement for WYSIWYG (WYSIWYG) editors, which use rich text and then convert it into appropriate HTML.

Perhaps you have unintentionally used Markdown. Facebook chat, Skype, and Reddit all allow you to format your messages using different styles of Markdown.

Give a simple example: To use Markdown bold text, simply enclose them with an asterisk (*). So, when everything is ready, * bold text * looks like bold text.

In short, Markdown is a great way to write for the internet using plain text.

Why use Markdown?

Markdown is easy to learn and fast to use

Markdown is very easy to learn. The official grammar can be found here, but most of what you need to know is that typing * * word * * or __word__ will make the word bold; Entering * word * or w_ord_ will italicize the word; The link is written like this [anchor text]（ http://www.URL.com ）； The list is written exactly as you expect: simply press enter and add any of these three characters at the beginning of each line: -, *,+. So the following text:

–Project List 1

–Project List 2

–Project List 3

It will become like this:

• Project List 1
• Project List 2
• Project List 3

Alternatively, you can also use the tutorial to learn Markdown writing.

Therefore, Markdown input is almost always faster than writing with a rich text editor, especially when starting to use things like links or item lists. Rich text editors either require you to use a mouse or force you to remember complex keyboard shortcut sequences. One thing to note is that if complex text elements such as tables are needed, it is best to stick to using HTML. Fortunately, Markdown has full HTML support, so you can write a table in HTML and return it directly to Markdown in the same document.

Additionally, reading raw Markdown is much easier than reading raw HTML. This is also one of the reasons why Markdown was invented.

Markdown can be easily converted to HTML

Now, if you want to write HTML, you should only write HTML. But if you are writing an email or a self description file that requires formatting options but not all of its features, Markdown is the best choice.

Markdown can be perfectly converted to HTML, eliminating the hassle of opening and closing all tags.

In fact, Markdown has software that can convert plain text into built-in HTML! So besides being a markup language, Markdown is actually a text to HTML conversion software.

Also, have you tried converting a. docx document to HTML? You often get too many extra formats and spaces, which are not worth the effort.

Markdown will never become outdated

The so-called 'not outdated' means that Markdown is a plain text format. As long as plain text is standard text (for a considerable period of time), Markdown can be used and opened by modern programs. In contrast, Microsoft Word had 8 different file types in 2018. Keeping plain text ensures that there will never be outdated versions, so software does not need to update with formatting updates.

Markdown does have its own file name extension:. md, but it is designed as a fully readable raw text file. So it can be said with certainty that Markdown can be preserved indefinitely.

Markdown is available everywhere

You may have thought that as rich text becomes increasingly popular, Markdown will be put on hold, but in fact, it is not the case. Since its launch, Markdown's influence has been continuously growing.

Markdown is an informal standard on popular coding websites such as GitHub. Markdown is still the default formatting option in popular communication tools such as Skype, Slack, and (to a lesser extent) Facebook Messenger. Wikipedia even uses modified Markdown syntax, which they call wikitext.


In a world where social coding is only becoming increasingly social, programmers who are not familiar with Markdown will find themselves at a disadvantage (or at least confused for a short period of time).

所以学习Markdown吧，如果没有其他原因，您可以跟上行业的发展。

Writing prose does not require changing the editor

Writing prose using a text editor has always been a challenge. This is not to say that it cannot be achieved, but pure text eliminates many formatting options that are often useful in prose writing. This is not so much a big problem as a small obstacle, but it is still enough to make many people prefer to switch to their email program to write emails, or switch to their word processor to write essays, rather than staying in UltraEdit to write everything. But with the introduction of Markdown, writing emails or blogs in UltraEdit is now a very feasible method. Of course, you don't have to do this, but allowing people to handle every situation selectively is one of the best things UltraEdit does!