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Writing Markdown

Contents

1. What is Markdown?
   
2. An example
   
3. Markdown reference sheet
   
4. Tools for writing Markdown
   

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a simple way of formatting plain text. It’s the ‘language’ scholars.forum pages are written in.

The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.

— John Gruber, co-creator of Markdown, in a blog post

The idea was to make writing simple web pages … as easy as writing an email.

– Aaron Swartz, co-creator of Markdown, in a blog post

Markdown is easy to read and easy to write. You can learn Markdown in ten minutes or less. Check out a tutorial »

This page is written in Markdown, as is every page on scholars.forum. One way of learning more is by examining the Markdown source of scholars.forum pages. A Markdown source link is in the footer⤓ of every page.

An example

# Welcome!

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

![An image of scholar at work](scholar.jpg)

Links: [Home](/aeinstein), [CV](/aeinstein/cv.pdf)

> A blockquote with *italic* and **bold** text.

Here is a list of publications:

- *On the Origin of Species*
- *A Theory of Justice*
- *The Selfish Gene*

Here’s how that looks in the browser:

Welcome!

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Links: Home, CV

A blockquote with italic and bold text.

Here is a list of publications:

• On the Origin of Species
  
• A Theory of Justice
  
• The Selfish Gene
  

Markdown reference sheet

Note: link and image addresses are case-sensitive! (cv.pdf ≠ CV.pdf)

In addition, you can write blocks of non-formatted text, such as code:

```
code
	goes
		here
```

code
        goes
                here

and basic tables:

Name    | Age
--------|------
Bob     | 27
Alice   | 23

Name	Age
Bob	27
Alice	23

Printable reference sheet »

Tools for writing Markdown

Because Markdown is just lightly formatted plain text, you can write it in any text editor.

In addition, there are many editors to let you write and preview Markdown-formatted text in a web browser. Here are two:

• Minimalist Online Markdown Editor
  
• Typo