Markdown Preview Guide: Write Better Documentation

What Is Markdown?

Markdown is a lightweight markup language created by John Gruber in 2004. It is designed to be human-readable in plain text while converting cleanly to HTML. Markdown powers README files, documentation, forum posts, static site generators, and countless developer tools — making it the de facto standard for developer writing.

Why Use a Preview Tool?

Writing Markdown in a plain text editor means you cannot see what the rendered output looks like until you push to GitHub or build your site. A live preview tool shows you the rendered HTML side-by-side as you type, catching formatting errors instantly and letting you iterate on your content without the edit-commit-push-wait cycle.

Extended Syntax

• Tables — create tabular data with pipe and dash syntax
• Fenced code blocks — triple backticks with optional language for syntax highlighting
• Task lists — checkboxes with - [ ] and - [x]
• Footnotes — reference-style notes at the bottom of your document
• Strikethrough — ~~text~~ for crossed-out content

Markdown Flavors

Different platforms support different Markdown extensions. GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) adds tables, task lists, and auto-linking. CommonMark is a standardized spec that resolves ambiguities in the original Markdown. When writing for a specific platform, check which flavor it supports.

Try Our Markdown Preview

Write and preview Markdown instantly with our Markdown Preview tool. Real-time rendered output alongside your source. All processing runs in your browser.

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Originally published at devtools.systems