Topic
Markdown
Markdown is a plain-text markup style that uses lightweight punctuation conventions to represent headings, links, lists, emphasis, code, and other structure.
At a glance
- Document source
- Plain text
- Common standardized syntax
- CommonMark
Overview
Markdown lets a document remain readable as plain text while also supporting conversion into structured output such as HTML. Different products historically implemented different extensions, so a document can render differently across platforms unless it targets a defined flavor such as CommonMark or a product-specific variant. Source text and rendered output should therefore both be checked when portability matters.
Syntax stays intentionally lightweight
Characters such as number signs, asterisks, backticks, and brackets describe common document structures without requiring verbose tags. That makes Markdown practical for README files, notes, issue descriptions, documentation, and other text-first workflows.
Flavors can add features
Tables, task lists, automatic link handling, and other features may be extensions rather than universal Markdown syntax. When content must move between systems, identify the target parser and avoid assuming that every extension will be interpreted the same way.
Sources and review
MOOR's explanatory text is supported by the following source links.
- CommonMark help — CommonMark
- Basic writing and formatting syntax — GitHub Docs