# Markdown Crash Course

# Short introduction of Markdown

**Markdown** is a lightweight markup language created by **John Gruber** and **Aaron Swartz** in 2004. It is widely used for <mark>blogging, instant messaging, online forums, collaborative software, documentation pages, and readme files.</mark> Markdown was inspired by pre-existing conventions for marking up plain text in email and Usenet posts, such as the earlier markup languages setext, Textile, and reStructuredText.

Learning Markdown is very essential in open source because you'll see README.md file on GitHub in every project, so you must have to learn it.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1705426611982/2af5d409-688e-464b-b0a6-71281375ce95.png align="center")

In the above picture, you can see the README.md file which is here a profile's special readme file that everyone gets with the same **username repository.**

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1705426831889/99b270ef-6d9d-48c8-936c-1eb6b40b6fed.png align="center")

Now in this picture, you can see all the headings, bold, italic, code, link, etc.. formats are given and after using these before posting you can see the preview.

**Note**: It is almost close to HTML but it is different from HTML because as I told you earlier it is a lightweight version of HTML.

## Let's see all the syntax of Markdown:

* Headings
    

```markdown
# A first-level heading
## A second-level heading
### A third-level heading
```

* Bold and Italic
    

```markdown
**Bold**
*italic*
```

* For highlight
    
    In this, the line will be highlighted
    

```markdown
> This is a blockquote
```

* For ordered and unordered lists
    

```markdown
for ordered list
1. 
2.
for unordered list 
-
-
```

* Code
    

````markdown
`code`

```javascript
console.log
```
````

* For Links and Images
    

```markdown
This is for the link

[Your Title](www.google.com)

This is for the images

![Your Title](./images/opensource.png)
```

* Checked and unchecked lists - GitHub's extra flavor
    

```markdown
- [x] checked
- [ ] unchecked
```

* Adding emoji
    
    Try it on GitHub or if you want to use it in VS Code install the
    

```markdown
:joy:
```

**Recommended** 😅: Use emoji directly bro, don't need to write :joy: and then get the emoji, today UTF 16 is supported everywhere.

* Making tables
    

```markdown
| Title | description |
| --- | --- |
| Open Source | Open Source etiquette |
```

* Draw a line
    

```markdown
---
```

### Wrap Up:

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1705430195214/1fa8313f-2ffb-44a5-b17e-e95b07f6e159.png align="center")

### Website to convert simple text to markdown format

* [Markdown converter](https://stackedit.io/app#)
    

## Always create a README.md file (Benefits)

* When you create a new repository GitHub gives an option to create a README.md file along with that readme file.
    
* So README file like a cover of a book, means it shows or describes what is inside your repository.
    
* It just takes 10 - 15 minutes to make your README.md file and it increases your profile value on GitHub if anyone visits your profile that person will be impressed by your work
    

### Another Blog: [Learn Git and GitHub](https://surajk00.hashnode.dev/getting-to-know-git-and-github-your-codes-best-friends)