The Markdown Guide

Deepdwn is an offline-only, feature-rich Markdown editing suite available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It supports document organization via tags and categories in YAML front matter, and supports backlinks to connect documents.

Key features include:

• Editing Tools: Document outline, distraction-free mode, table auto-formatting, Vim and Emacs keybindings, automatic list continuation, and persistent section folding.
• Media & Assets: Image drag-and-drop with in-editor previews.
• Analytics: Per-file and global word count history.
• Advanced Rendering: Support for Mermaid diagrams, AsciiMath, Katex, mhchem (math/chemistry), sheet music, guitar tabs, and songbooks.

HackMD is a real-time collaborative Markdown editor that supports CommonMark and several extended syntax elements. In addition to standard Markdown, it supports:

• MathJax: For mathematical formulas.
• Mermaid and Graphviz: For rendering UML diagrams.
• Vega-lite: For data visualizations.

It also supports various extended Markdown features like definition lists, task lists, strikethrough, subscript, superscript, and emoji.

For further learning beyond this guide, you can consult the following resources:

• Original Documentation: John Gruber's Markdown documentation by the creator of Markdown.
• Interactive Learning: Markdown Tutorial, an open-source site for practicing Markdown in a web browser.
• Tooling & Lists: Awesome Markdown for a curated list of Markdown tools and resources.
• Advanced Typesetting: Typesetting Markdown for information on using pandoc and ConTeXt to typeset documents.

Markdown writing follows a four-part process to convert plaintext into viewable documents:

1. Create: Write content in a text editor or dedicated application, saving the file with an .md or .markdown extension.
2. Open: Load the file into a Markdown application.
3. Convert: Use a Markdown processor (also called a parser or implementation) within the application to convert the Markdown text into HTML.
4. View/Export: View the resulting HTML in a web browser, or use the application to export the document to other formats like PDF.

Note that a Markdown application (the user interface) and a Markdown processor (the engine that performs the conversion) are separate components, though many applications combine them into a single user experience.

Markdown is not a single, unified standard; instead, different applications implement different versions known as flavors. These flavors act like language dialects—while the core concepts remain similar, the specific syntax supported can vary significantly between applications (e.g., JotBird vs. Ulysses).

When choosing an application, be aware that "Markdown support" can mean different things: it might only include basic syntax elements or include extended syntax elements. To ensure your files remain portable across different tools, select an application with robust Markdown support.

Markdown is a lightweight markup language used to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents. Unlike WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors like Microsoft Word where you click buttons to format text, Markdown requires you to add specific syntax directly into the text to indicate formatting.

Key characteristics:

• Readability: The syntax is designed to be readable and unobtrusive, meaning the document remains legible even when not rendered.
• Portability: Markdown files are plaintext and can be edited in any text editor or specialized Markdown application across macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.
• Syntax-based: Formatting is achieved by adding characters (like # or **) around text.

To create a blockquote, add a > character in front of a paragraph.

> Dorothy followed her through many of the beautiful rooms in her castle.

You can combine bold and italic styles by using three asterisks (***) or three underscores (___) before and after a word or phrase.

To emphasize the middle of a word (without spaces), wrap the target letters in three asterisks.

Best Practice: Because different Markdown processors handle underscores differently within words, use asterisks (*) instead of underscores (_) when emphasizing the middle of a word to ensure maximum compatibility.

This text is ***really important***.
This text is ___really important___
This text is __*really important*__.
This text is **_really important_**.

# Best practice for middle-of-word emphasis:
This is really***very***important text.