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Markdown Cheat Sheet

A comprehensive Markdown cheat sheet with basic and extended syntax examples. Learn how to format text, create lists, add links, and more.

10 min read

TL;DR

This Markdown cheat sheet provides a quick and easy reference for formatting text using Markdown syntax.

Markdown Cheat Sheet

Markdown is a lightweight syntax for formatting plain text that is easy to read and write. Applivery supports Markdown in publications and text fields to enrich your content without needing to write HTML.

This page is a quick reference for the most commonly used Markdown elements. For the full specification, see John Gruber's original spec and the GitHub-flavored Markdown guide.


Basic Syntax

These are the core elements supported by all Markdown applications.


Headings

Use # symbols to define headings. The number of # symbols corresponds to the heading level (1–6).

# H1
## H2
### H3
#### H4
##### H5
###### H6

Emphasis

Italic text with *asterisks* or _underscores_.

Bold text with **asterisks** or __underscores__.

Combined bold and italic with **asterisks and _underscores_**.

Strikethrough with two tildes: ~~strikethrough~~.

Renders as:

Italic text with asterisks or underscores.

Bold text with asterisks or underscores.

Combined bold and italic with asterisks and underscores.

Strikethrough with two tildes: strikethrough.


Horizontal Rules

Any of the following produce a horizontal divider line:

___

---

***

Lists

Ordered list:

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item

Unordered list — asterisks, hyphens, and plus signs all work:

* Item using asterisk
- Item using hyphen
+ Item using plus

Nested list:

1. First ordered item
2. Second ordered item
   - Unordered sub-item
   - Another sub-item
3. Third ordered item
   1. Ordered sub-item
Note

Actual numbers in ordered lists don't matter — Markdown will render them sequentially regardless of what numbers you use. 1. 1. 1. renders as 1. 2. 3.


[Link text](https://www.example.com)

[Link text with tooltip](https://www.example.com "Tooltip text")

Bare URLs are also automatically converted to links in most Markdown renderers:

https://www.example.com
<https://www.example.com>

Images

![Alt text](https://www.example.com/image.png)

![Alt text with tooltip](https://www.example.com/image.png "Tooltip text")

The alt text is displayed if the image fails to load and is also used by screen readers.


Code

Inline code — wrap text in single backticks:

Use the `code` tag for inline snippets.

Code blocks — wrap with triple backticks. Optionally specify a language for syntax highlighting:

```javascript
const greeting = "Hello, world!";
console.log(greeting);
```

```python
greeting = "Hello, world!"
print(greeting)
```

```
No language specified — no syntax highlighting applied.
```

Renders as:

const greeting = "Hello, world!";
console.log(greeting);
greeting = "Hello, world!"
print(greeting)
No language specified — no syntax highlighting applied.

Blockquotes

Use > to create blockquotes. Blockquotes can be nested and can contain other Markdown elements.

> This is a blockquote.
> This line is part of the same quote.

> You can use *italic* and **bold** inside a blockquote.

> First level
>> Nested blockquote

Renders as:

This is a blockquote.
This line is part of the same quote.

You can use italic and bold inside a blockquote.

First level

Nested blockquote


Extended Syntax

These elements extend the basic syntax and are supported by most modern Markdown renderers, including GitHub-flavored Markdown.


Tables

Use pipes | and hyphens - to create tables. The second row defines alignment using colons:

| Left-aligned | Center-aligned | Right-aligned |
|:---|:---:|---:|
| Cell | Cell | Cell |
| Cell | Cell | Cell |

Renders as:

Left-aligned

Center-aligned

Right-aligned

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell

Cell


Task Lists

- [x] Completed task
- [ ] Incomplete task
- [ ] Another incomplete task

Renders as:

  • Completed task

  • Incomplete task

  • Another incomplete task


Footnotes

Here is a sentence with a footnote.[^1]

[^1]: This is the footnote content.

Escaping Characters

To display a character that would otherwise be interpreted as Markdown formatting, prefix it with a backslash \:

\*This text is not italicized\*
\# This is not a heading

Characters that can be escaped: \ * _ { } [ ] ( ) # + - . !


Quick Reference

Element

Syntax

Heading 1

# Heading

Heading 2

## Heading

Bold

**bold**

Italic

*italic*

Bold + Italic

***bold italic***

Strikethrough

~~strikethrough~~

Inline code

`code`

Code block

```language

Blockquote

> quote

Ordered list

1. item

Unordered list

- item

Link

[text](url)

Image

![alt](url)

Horizontal rule

---

Table

| col | col |

Task list

- [x] done

Escape character

\*

Key Takeaways

  • Markdown is a lightweight syntax for formatting plain text.
  • Basic Markdown syntax includes headings, emphasis, lists, links, and images.
  • Extended Markdown syntax includes tables, task lists, and footnotes.
  • Markdown is widely used for documentation and online content creation.
  • Escaping characters allows you to display special characters without triggering Markdown formatting.