About Markdown Preview

Markdown is a lightweight markup language created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz in 2004 that has become the de facto standard for writing formatted content in the software industry. GitHub, GitLab, Stack Overflow, Reddit, Discord, Slack, Notion, and Obsidian all support Markdown. README files, documentation, blog posts, and technical wikis are predominantly written in Markdown. Markdown has become the universal documentation language because it is readable as plain text, renders beautifully as HTML, and can be written in any text editor without specialized software.

Markdown Syntax Quick Reference

Core Markdown syntax includes: headings (# through ######), bold (**text**), italic (*text*), strikethrough (~~text~~), links ([text](url)), images (), inline code (`code`), fenced code blocks (```language), blockquotes (> text), ordered lists (1. item), unordered lists (- item), horizontal rules (---), and task lists (- [x] done, - [ ] pending). Tables use pipes (|) and dashes (-) to create columns and rows.

GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extends standard Markdown with tables, task lists, autolinked URLs, strikethrough, and syntax-highlighted code blocks. For documentation sites, tools like MkDocs, Docusaurus, VitePress, and Jekyll convert Markdown files into full documentation websites with navigation, search, and versioning. MDX extends Markdown with JSX component support, enabling interactive documentation with embedded React components. This preview tool supports all common Markdown features and renders output in real-time as you type.