The Markdown Cheat Sheet — every element, on one page.

Use one # per level, followed by a space. Keep a single H1 per document and don't skip levels — clean heading structure helps readers, HTML conversion, and SEO.

H1 and H2 also accept an underline style:

Title
=====

Section
-------

Underscores work too (__bold__, _italic_), but asterisks are safer mid-word. Strikethrough is a GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extension.

A blank line starts a new paragraph.

This is a separate paragraph.

Within a paragraph, end a line with two trailing spaces or a backslash (\) to force a hard line break. Wrapping lines in your source without a blank line between them are joined into one paragraph.

> Single-line quote.

> Multi-line quote
> continues here.
>
> > Nested quote inside a quote.

Prefix each line with >. Quotes can contain other markdown — lists, code, even headings. On GitHub, > [!NOTE] and > [!WARNING] render as colored alert callouts.

---

***

___

Three or more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on their own line produce a rule. Leave a blank line above --- so it isn't parsed as a heading underline.

- Unordered item
- Another item
  - Nested item (indent 2–4 spaces)

1. Ordered item
2. Second item
   1. Nested ordered item

Unordered lists accept -, *, or +. Ordered lists renumber automatically, so starting every line with 1. also works.

- [x] Completed task
- [ ] Pending task
- [ ] Another to-do

Task lists render as checkboxes on GitHub and in the Markdown Viewer — where clicking a checkbox updates the source.

| Left  | Center | Right |
| :---- | :----: | ----: |
| a     |   b    |     c |
| dd    |   ee   |    ff |

Pipes don't need to line up — only the structure matters. Control alignment with colons in the divider row: :--- left, :---: center, ---: right. Escape a literal pipe inside a cell as \|.

Term
: Definition of the term

Markdown
: A lightweight markup language
: A plain-text formatting syntax

Not part of core Markdown, but supported by many processors (PHP Markdown Extra, Pandoc). Put the term on one line and each definition on the next, prefixed with :.

[Inline link](https://example.com)
[With title](https://example.com "Tooltip text")
[Reference link][ref]
<https://autolinked.example.com>

[ref]: https://example.com

Reference links keep long URLs out of your prose — define [ref]: anywhere in the document. Bare URLs in angle brackets (or plain, in GFM) become clickable automatically.

![Alt text](/path/to/image.png "Optional title")

![Reference image][logo]

[logo]: /assets/logo.png

[![Clickable image](/thumb.png)](https://example.com)

Image syntax is link syntax with a leading !. Wrap an image in a link to make it clickable. Always write meaningful alt text — it matters for accessibility and image SEO.

Here is a statement that needs a source.[^1]

You can also use inline notes.[^note]

[^1]: The first footnote definition.
[^note]: Footnotes render at the bottom of the document.

Reference a footnote with [^label] and define it anywhere with [^label]:. Supported by GFM, Pandoc, and most modern renderers.

Inline code uses `backticks`.

```js
function greet(name) {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`;
}
```

Fence blocks with triple backticks and add a language hint (js, python, json, rust, sql…) for highlighting — this site recognizes 190+ languages. To show literal backticks inline, wrap them in a longer run of backticks.

Inline math: $E = mc^2$ and $\alpha + \beta$

Display math:

$$\int_a^b f(x)\,dx = F(b) - F(a)$$

$$\sum_{i=1}^{n} i^2 = \frac{n(n+1)(2n+1)}{6}$$

Wrap inline math in single $ and display math in double $$. Rendering is powered by KaTeX in the Markdown Viewer.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  A[Start] --> B{Working?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Ship it]
  B -->|No| A
```

A fenced block tagged mermaid becomes a flowchart, sequence diagram, Gantt chart, and more. GitHub, GitLab, Notion, and Obsidian render it natively. Paste examples into the Markdown Viewer for fullscreen zoom and PNG/SVG export.

Markdown allows raw HTML for the few things it has no syntax for. Some platforms (like GitHub comments) strip certain tags; the ones above are widely supported.

Shortcodes (GFM): :rocket: :sparkles: :tada:
Unicode: 🚀 ✨ 🎉
HTML entities: © → ♥

GitHub and many renderers support :shortcode: emoji. Pasting Unicode emoji directly always works, and HTML entities cover symbols without a key.

\*Not italic\* and \*\*not bold\*\*

\# Not a heading

\- Not a list item

Put a backslash before a character markdown would otherwise interpret: \* \_ \` \# \[ \] \( \) \| \\.

• GitHub — full GFM plus Mermaid, math, footnotes, and alerts (> [!NOTE]).
• Discord — bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, code, spoilers (||text||), headers, and subtext; no tables or images. See the Discord Markdown cheat sheet for the full syntax and a live preview.
• Reddit — basic syntax plus tables and superscript (^text); fenced code works in newer editors.
• Slack — its own "mrkdwn": single asterisks for bold, underscores for italic; standard links don't work.
• Obsidian — CommonMark and GFM plus wikilinks, embeds, callouts, and ==highlights==. See the Obsidian Markdown cheat sheet for the full syntax and a live reading-view preview.