You can also select text and press CTRL+K to toggle indenting as code.

The text will be wrapped in tags, and displayed in a monospaced font. The first four spaces will be stripped off, but all other whitespace will be preserved.

Markdown and HTML are ignored within a code block:

Instead of using indentation, you can also create code blocks by using 'code fences', consisting of three or more backticks or tildes:

Code Spans

Use backticks to create an inline span:

(The backtick key is in the upper left corner of most keyboards.)

Like code blocks, code spans will be displayed in a monospaced font. Markdown and HTML will not work within them. Note that, unlike code blocks, code spans require you to manually escape any HTML within!

If your code itself contains backticks, you may have to use multiple backticks as delimiters:

Linebreaks

End a line with two spaces to add a
linebreak:

Italics and Bold

You can also select text and press CTRL+I or CTRL+B to toggle italics or bold respectively.

Links

There are three ways to write links. Each is easier to read than the last:

You can also select text and press CTRL+L to make it a link, or press CTRL+L with no text selected to insert a link at the current position.

The link definitions can appear anywhere in the document -- before or after the place where you use them. The link definition names [1] and [yahoo] can be any unique string, and are case-insensitive; [yahoo] is the same as [YAHOO].

Advanced Links

Links can have a title attribute, which will show up on hover. Title attributes can also be added; they are helpful if the link itself is not descriptive enough to tell users where they're going.

You can also use standard HTML hyperlink syntax.

Bare URLs

We have modified our Markdown parser to support 'naked' URLs (in most but not all cases -- beware of unusual characters in your URLs); they will be converted to links automatically:

Force URLs by enclosing them in angle brackets:

URLs can be relative or full.

Headers

Underline text to make the two

top-level headers :

You can also select text and press CTRL+H to step through the different heading styles.

The number of = or - signs doesn't matter; one will work. But using enough to underline the text makes your titles look better in plain text.

Use hash marks for several levels of headers:

The closing # characters are optional.

Horizontal Rules

Insert a horizontal rule

by putting three or more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on a line by themselves:

You can also press CTRL+R to insert a horizontal rule.

Using spaces between the characters also works:

You can also press CTRL+R to insert a horizontal rule.

Simple lists

A bulleted

list:

A numbered

list:

You can also select text and press CTRL+U or CTRL+O to toggle a bullet or numbered list respectively.

Advanced lists: Nesting

To put other Markdown blocks in a list; just indent four spaces for each nesting level:

Simple blockquotes

Add a > to the beginning of any line to create a blockquote.

You can also select text and press CTRL+Q to toggle a blockquote.

Advanced blockquotes: Nesting

To put other Markdown blocks in a blockquote, just add a > followed by a space.

To put other Markdown blocks in a blockquote, just add a > followed by a space:

Blockquotes within a blockquote:

Lists in a blockquote:

Preformatted text in a blockquote:

Images

Images are exactly like links, but they have an exclamation point in front of them:

You can also press CTRL+G to insert an image.

The word in square brackets is the alt text, which gets displayed if the browser can't show the image. Be sure to include meaningful alt text for screen-reading software.

Just like links, images work with reference syntax and titles:

Note: Markdown does not currently support the shortest reference syntax for images:

But you can use a slightly more verbose version of implicit reference names:

The reference name is also used as the alt text.

You can also use standard HTML image syntax, which allows you to scale the width and height of the image.

URLs can be relative or full.

Inline HTML

If you need to do something that Markdown can't handle, use HTML. Note that we only support a very strict subset of HTML!

Markdown is smart enough not to mangle your span-level HTML:

Block-level HTML elements have a few restrictions:

1. They must be separated from surrounding text by blank lines.
2. The begin and end tags of the outermost block element must not be indented.
3. Markdown can't be used within HTML blocks.

Need More Detail?

Visit the official CommonMark specification.

Markdown Advanced




Stack Exchange additions

The following sections describe some additional features for text formatting that aren't officially part of CommonMark.

Tags

To talk about a tag on this site, like-this, use

The tag will automatically be linked to the corresponding tag page.

Spoilers

Markdown 1.2

To hide a certain piece of text and have it only be visible when a user clicks it, use the blockquote syntax with an additional exclamation point:

Syntax highlighting for code

Code blocks can be highlighted using highlight.js. In many cases, the syntax highlighting language will be inferred from the question's tags.

To manually specify the language of a fenced code block, add the language to the line with the opening fence:

You can use either one of the supported language codes, like lang-cpp or lang-sql, or you can specify a tag, and the syntax highlighting language associated with this tag will be used.

To specify a syntax highlighting language to be used not only for the next, but for all following code blocks, use:

To specify that you don't want any syntax highlighting for a code block, use:

Comment formatting

Comments support only bold, italic, code and links; in addition, a few shorthand links are available.

Supported shorthand links:

• [meta] – link to the current site's Meta; link text is the site name (e.g. 'Super User Meta'). Does nothing if the site doesn't have (or already is) a Meta site.

• [main] – like [meta], just the other way around.

• [edit] – link to the edit page for the post the comment is on, i.e. /posts/{id}/edit. Link text is 'edit' (capitalization is respected).

• [tag:tagname] and [meta-tag:tagname] – link to the given tag's page. Link text is the name of the tag.meta-tag only works on meta sites.

• [help], [help/on-topic], [help/dont-ask], [help/behavior] and [meta-help] – link to frequently visited pages of the help center. Link text is 'help center' (capitalization is respected). All links point to the main site.

• [tour] – link to the Tour page. Link text is 'tour' (capitalization is respected).

• [so], [pt.so], [su], [sf], [metase], [a51], [se] – link to the given site. Link text is the site name.

• [chat] – link to the current site's chat site, the link text being '{site name} Chat'.

• [ask], [answer] – link to the How to Ask or How to Answer page.

• [mcve], [mre], [reprex], [repro], [example] – link to /help/minimal-reproducible-example, with the link text 'minimal reproducible example'.

• [something.se] – link to something.stackexchange.com, if that site exists. Link text is the site name. Use [ubuntu.se] for Ask Ubuntu.

Replying in comments

The owner of the post you're commenting on will always be notified of your comment. If you are replying to someone else who has previously commented on the same post, mention their username: @peter and @PeterSmith will both notify a previous commenter named 'Peter Smith'.

It is generally sufficient to mention only the first name of the user whose comment you are replying to, e.g. @ben or @marc. However you may need to be more specific if three people named Ben replied in earlier comments, by adding the first character of the last name, e.g. @benm or @benc Spaces are not valid in comment reply names, so don't use @peter smith, always enter it as @peters or @petersmith.

If the user you're replying to has no natural first name and last name, simply enter enough characters of the name to make it clear who you are responding to. Three is the minimum, so if you're replying to Fantastico, enter @fan, @fant, or @fantastic.

You can use the same method to notify any editor of the post, or – if this is the case – to the ♦ moderator who closed the question.

Overview

Nearly all Markdown applications support the basic syntax outlined in John Gruber's original design document. There are minor variations and discrepancies between Markdown processors — those are noted inline wherever possible.

Headings

To create a heading, add number signs (#) in front of a word or phrase. The number of number signs you use should correspond to the heading level. For example, to create a heading level three (

), use three number signs (e.g., ### My Header).

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
# Heading level 1	Heading level 1
## Heading level 2	Heading level 2	Heading level 2
### Heading level 3	Heading level 3	Heading level 3
#### Heading level 4	Heading level 4	Heading level 4
##### Heading level 5	Heading level 5	Heading level 5
###### Heading level 6	Heading level 6	Heading level 6

Alternate Syntax

Alternatively, on the line below the text, add any number of characters for heading level 1 or -- characters for heading level 2.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
Heading level 1	Heading level 1
Heading level 2 ---------------	Heading level 2	Heading level 2

Heading Best Practices

Markdown applications don't agree on how to handle a missing space between the number signs (#) and the heading name. For compatibility, always put a space between the number signs and the heading name.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
# Here's a Heading	#Here's a Heading

Paragraphs

To create paragraphs, use a blank line to separate one or more lines of text.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
I really like using Markdown. I think I'll use it to format all of my documents from now on.	I really like using Markdown. I think I'll use it to format all of my documents from now on.	I really like using Markdown. I think I'll use it to format all of my documents from now on.

Paragraph Best Practices

Unless the paragraph is in a list, don't indent paragraphs with spaces or tabs.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
Don't put tabs or spaces in front of your paragraphs. Keep lines left-aligned like this.	This can result in unexpected formatting problems. Don't add tabs or spaces in front of paragraphs.

Line Breaks

To create a line break (
), end a line with two or more spaces, and then type return.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
This is the first line. And this is the second line.	This is the first line. And this is the second line.	This is the first line. And this is the second line.

Line Break Best Practices

You can use two or more spaces (commonly referred to as 'trailing whitespace') for line breaks in nearly every Markdown application, but it's controversial. It's hard to see trailing whitespace in an editor, and many people accidentally or intentionally put two spaces after every sentence. For this reason, you may want to use something other than trailing whitespace for line breaks. Fortunately, there is another option supported by nearly every Markdown application: the
HTML tag.

Fsnotes 1 6 1 – note manager. For compatibility, use trailing white space or the
HTML tag at the end of the line.

There are two other options I don't recommend using. CommonMark and a few other lightweight markup languages let you type a backslash () at the end of the line, but not all Markdown applications support this, so it isn't a great option from a compatibility perspective. And at least a couple lightweight markup languages don't require anything at the end of the line — just type return and they'll create a line break.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
First line with two spaces after. And the next line. First line with the HTML tag after. And the next line.	First line with a backslash after. And the next line. First line with nothing after. And the next line.

Emphasis

You can add emphasis by making text bold or italic.

Bold

To bold text, add two asterisks or underscores before and after a word or phrase. To bold the middle of a word for emphasis, add two asterisks without spaces around the letters.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
I just love **bold text**.	I just love bold text.	I just love bold text.
I just love __bold text__.	I just love bold text.	I just love bold text.
Love**is**bold	Loveisbold	Loveisbold

Bold Best Practices

Markdown applications don't agree on how to handle underscores in the middle of a word. For compatibility, use asterisks to bold the middle of a word for emphasis.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
Love**is**bold	Love__is__bold

Italic

To italicize text, add one asterisk or underscore before and after a word or phrase. To italicize the middle of a word for emphasis, add one asterisk without spaces around the letters.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
Italicized text is the *cat's meow*.	Italicized text is the cat's meow.	Italicized text is the cat's meow.
Italicized text is the _cat's meow_.	Italicized text is the cat's meow.	Italicized text is the cat's meow.
A*cat*meow	Acatmeow	Acatmeow

Italic Best Practices

Markdown applications don't agree on how to handle underscores in the middle of a word. For compatibility, use asterisks to italicize the middle of a word for emphasis.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
A*cat*meow	A_cat_meow

Bold and Italic

To emphasize text with bold and italics at the same time, add three asterisks or underscores before and after a word or phrase. To bold and italicize the middle of a word for emphasis, add three asterisks without spaces around the letters.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
This text is ***really important***.	This text is really important.	This text is really important.
This text is ___really important___.	This text is really important.	This text is really important.
This text is __*really important*__.	This text is really important.	This text is really important.
This text is **_really important_**.	This text is really important.	This text is really important.
This is really***very***important text.	This is reallyveryimportant text.	This is reallyveryimportant text.

Bold and Italic Best Practices

Markdown applications don't agree on how to handle underscores in the middle of a word. For compatibility, use asterisks to bold and italicize the middle of a word for emphasis.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
This is really***very***important text.	This is really___very___important text.

Blockquotes

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

The rendered output looks like this:

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

Blockquotes with Multiple Paragraphs

Blockquotes can contain multiple paragraphs. Add a > on the blank lines between the paragraphs.

The rendered output looks like this:

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

The Witch bade her clean the pots and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood.

Nested Blockquotes

Blockquotes can be nested. Add a >> in front of the paragraph you want to nest.

The rendered output looks like this:

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

The Witch bade her clean the pots and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood.

Blockquotes with Other Elements

Blockquotes can contain other Markdown formatted elements. Not all elements can be used — you'll need to experiment to see which ones work.

The rendered output looks like this:

The quarterly results look great!

• Revenue was off the chart.
• Profits were higher than ever.

Everything is going according to plan.

Lists

You can organize items into ordered and unordered lists.

Ordered Lists

To create an ordered list, add line items with numbers followed by periods. The numbers don't have to be in numerical order, but the list should start with the number one.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
1. First item 2. Second item 3. Third item 4. Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item
1. First item 1. Second item 1. Third item 1. Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item
1. First item 8. Second item 3. Third item 5. Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item
1. First item 2. Second item 3. Third item 1. Indented item 2. Indented item 4. Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Indented item Indented item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Indented item Indented item Fourth item

Ordered List Best Practices

CommonMark and a few other lightweight markup languages let you use a parenthesis ()) as a delimiter (e.g., 1) First item), but not all Markdown applications support this, so it isn't a great option from a compatibility perspective. For compatibility, use periods only.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
1. First item 2. Second item	1) First item 2) Second item

Unordered Lists

To create an unordered list, add dashes (-), asterisks (*), or plus signs (+) in front of line items. Indent one or more items to create a nested list.

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
- First item - Second item - Third item - Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item
* First item * Second item * Third item * Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item
+ First item + Second item + Third item + Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Fourth item
- First item - Second item - Third item - Indented item - Indented item - Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Indented item Indented item Fourth item	First item Second item Third item Indented item Indented item Fourth item

Unordered List Best Practices

Markdown applications don't agree on how to handle different delimiters in the same list. For compatibility, don't mix and match delimiters in the same list — pick one and stick with it.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
- First item - Second item - Third item - Fourth item	+ First item * Second item - Third item + Fourth item

Adding Elements in Lists

To add another element in a list while preserving the continuity of the list, indent the element four spaces or one tab, as shown in the following examples.

Paragraphs

The rendered output looks like this:

• This is the first list item.

• Here's the second list item.

  I need to add another paragraph below the second list item.

• And here's the third list item.

Blockquotes

The rendered output looks like this:

• This is the first list item.

• Here's the second list item.

  A blockquote would look great below the second list item.

• And here's the third list item.

Code Blocks

Code blocks are normally indented four spaces or one tab. When they're in a list, indent them eight spaces or two tabs.

The rendered output looks like this:

1. Open the file.

2. Find the following code block on line 21:

3. Update the title to match the name of your website.

Images

Markdown 101

The rendered output looks like this:

1. Open the file containing the Linux mascot.

2. Marvel at its beauty.

3. Close the file.

Lists

You can nest an unordered list in an ordered list, or vice versa.

The rendered output looks like this:

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item
   • Indented item
   • Indented item
4. Fourth item

Code

To denote a word or phrase as code, enclose it in backticks (`).

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
At the command prompt, type `nano`.	At the command prompt, type nano.	At the command prompt, type nano.

Escaping Backticks

If the word or phrase you want to denote as code includes one or more backticks, you can escape it by enclosing the word or phrase in double backticks (``).

Markdown	HTML	Rendered Output
``Use `code` in your Markdown file.``	Use `code` in your Markdown file.	Use `code` in your Markdown file.

Code Blocks

To create code blocks, indent every line of the block by at least four spaces or one tab.

The rendered output looks like this:

Note: To create code blocks without indenting lines, use fenced code blocks.

Horizontal Rules

To create a horizontal rule, use three or more asterisks (***), dashes (---), or underscores (___) on a line by themselves.

The rendered output of all three looks identical:

Horizontal Rule Best Practices

For compatibility, put blank lines before and after horizontal rules.

✅ Do this	❌ Don't do this
Try to put a blank line before.. --- ..and after a horizontal rule.	Without blank lines, this would be a heading. --- Don't do this!

Links

To create a link, enclose the link text in brackets (e.g., [Duck Duck Go]) and then follow it immediately with the URL in parentheses (e.g., (https://duckduckgo.com)).

The rendered output looks like this:

My favorite search engine is Duck Duck Go.

Adding Titles

You can optionally add a title for a link. This will appear as a tooltip when the user hovers over the link. To add a title, enclose it in parentheses after the URL.

The rendered output looks like this:

My favorite search engine is Duck Duck Go.

URLs and Email Addresses

To quickly turn a URL or email address into a link, enclose it in angle brackets.

The rendered output looks like this:

https://www.markdownguide.org
fake@example.com

Formatting Links

To emphasize links, add asterisks before and after the brackets and parentheses. To denote links as code, add backticks in the brackets.

The rendered output looks like this:

I love supporting the EFF.
This is the Markdown Guide.
See the section on code.

Reference-style Links

Reference-style links are a special kind of link that make URLs easier to display and read in Markdown. Reference-style links are constructed in two parts: the part you keep inline with your text and the part you store somewhere else in the file to keep the text easy to read.

Formatting the First Part of the Link

The first part of a reference-style link is formatted with two sets of brackets. The first set of brackets surrounds the text that should appear linked. The second set of brackets displays a label used to point to the link you're storing elsewhere in your document.

Although not required, you can include a space between the first and second set of brackets. The label in the second set of brackets is not case sensitive and can include letters, numbers, spaces, or punctuation.

This means the following example formats are roughly equivalent for the first part of the link:

• [hobbit-hole][1]
• [hobbit-hole] [1]

Formatting the Second Part of the Link

The second part of a reference-style link is formatted with the following attributes:

1. The label, in brackets, followed immediately by a colon and at least one space (e.g., [label]: ).
2. The URL for the link, which you can optionally enclose in angle brackets.
3. The optional title for the link, which you can enclose in double quotes, single quotes, or parentheses.

This means the following example formats are all roughly equivalent for the second part of the link:

• [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit#Lifestyle
• [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit#Lifestyle 'Hobbit lifestyles'
• [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit#Lifestyle 'Hobbit lifestyles'
• [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit#Lifestyle (Hobbit lifestyles)
• [1]: 'Hobbit lifestyles'
• [1]: 'Hobbit lifestyles'
• [1]: (Hobbit lifestyles)

You can place this second part of the link anywhere in your Markdown document. Some people place them immediately after the paragraph in which they appear while other people place them at the end of the document (like endnotes or footnotes).

An Example Putting the Parts Together

Say you add a URL as a standard URL link to a paragraph and it looks like this in Markdown:

Though it may point to interesting additional information, the URL as displayed really doesn't add much to the existing raw text other than making it harder to read. To fix that, you could format the URL like this instead: