Markdown is an open-source markup language designed to convert plain text to HTML. Web writers widely use it to style and format their content in text editors for blogs and social media. Markdown’s popularity has recently risen due to its simple syntax and readable format. I’ll cover the fundamentals you’ll need to start writing your first Markdown file in this blog.

How to start writing your first Markdown file?

• Let’s start by creating a new file on your favorite text editor (I like to use Sublime Text) and saving it as a “.md” file.
• Great!! Now that you have a markdown file created, you need to know a few basic syntaxes to start.
• To write a heading, use Hashmark (#). The number of hashmarks determines the level of the heading.

# Heading1

Heading1

## Heading2

Heading2

### Heading3

Heading3

####Heading4

Heading4

##### Heading5

Heading5

###### Heading6

Heading6

• A double-line break will create a new Paragraph.

This is paragraph 1

This is paragraph 2

• For font formatting, you can italicize the text by wrapping it with single asterisks or make it bold by wrapping it with double asterisks.
  *Want to make this Italic* **and this Bold**

Want to make this Italic and this Bold

• Creating Hyperlinks is easy. Enclose a text inside square brackets and follow it with an URL inside parentheses as shown below.
  
  Click [Here](Your URL goes here) to learn about YAML

Click Here to learn about YAML

• Greater than sign “>” is used to Blockquote the text or code. “>” can only be used at the beginning of a new line. “> Let’s BLOCKQUOTE this line” is rendered as below,

Let’s BLOCKQUOTE this line

• Dash “-” or Number followed by a “.” can be used to make lists

• item 1
• item 2
• item 3
  
  OR

1. item 1
2. item 2
3. item 3

• Great!! You are now set to start writing you content using Markdown.

What you learned so far was just the basics to get started. Using Markdown, you can also create Tables, Mathematical formulas, Flow charts, UML Diagrams, etc. Click Here To learn how to do more advanced stuff using Markdown.

Why should you use Markdown?

1. It’s Free!! You don’t have to buy paid software to build and publish your content.
2. Easy and quick to create rich formatted content.
3. You can use it with static site builders like Hugo to build your site in real-time and make changes along the way.
4. Not just used to build websites. You can use it to create all types of content like notes, to-do lists, documentation, resumes, presentations, etc.
5. Markdown is platform-independent, so you don’t have to worry about migrating the content across operating systems, Content Management Systems, etc.
6. If you already know how to code in HTML, Markdown can be your magic wand since it has full HTML support. So, you can use HTML inline anywhere.
7. If you know YAML(If you don’t know what YAML is click here) then you can use YAML for the Front Matter, page-specific metadata and functionality, at the top of your Markdown file.

Things to look out for

1. You cannot style your content freely and are limited to what you can change and what you cannot.
2. Markdown is open source. There are so many flavors of Markdown that aren’t compatible with one another.
3. No Standardization. So, you don’t know how it will render on a web browser.
4. Markdown is a superset of HTML, making it a security risk. Adding HTML tags to Markdown can make it susceptible to XSS attacks. So use HTML tags cautiously.

Conclusion

Markdown design to give fewer options to its users was by choice. Having more choices not only requires a lot of time to try them out but can also put a lot of users in a dilemma on deciding a better choice. So, at times having no option is a better option. Since Markdown has full HTML support, you can always add HTML tags anywhere you like to improve your content.