A Markdown Cheat Sheet for Anywhere

Not too long ago, I was terrible at Markdown. I was illiterate in arguably the most critical markup language in modern technology, spanning from Software Development and Artificial Intelligence to Technical Writing and Workspace Communications. I couldn't even make a basic README!

To be able to write code but be unable to make documentation is like knowing an alien language without being able to travel to the alien planet. To be fair, I wasn't much good at coding then anyway.

I tried to use GitHub Skills Communicate using Markdown, but as a beginner in GitHub, I wasn't able to trigger the required Actions to move forward.

I believe that everyone should be able to learn Markdown easily, regardless of what other tools they can use. The way I learned was through tutorials like this, so I decided to contribute a nice tutorial to the community.

Here is a quick-reference guide to common Markdown syntax to help you get started.

Element	Markdown	HTML	Output
Heading Level One	# H1	<h1>H1</h1>	H1
Heading Level Six	###### H6	<h6>H6</h6>	Heading Level Six
Bold	**text**	<b>text</b>	text
Italic	*text*	<i>text</i>	text
Link	[Title](URL)	<a href='URL'>Title</a>	Title
Inline Code	code	<code>code</code>	code
Image		<img src="URL" alt="Alt">
Strikethrough	~~text~~	<del>text</del>	text
Horizontal Divider	---	<hr>
Unordered list	* item OR - item	<ul><li>item</li></ul>	item
Ordered list	1. item	<ol><li>item</li></ol>	item
Blockquote	> quote	<blockquote>quote</blockquote>	quote
Code Blocks	```language code```	<pre><code>code</code></pre>	code
Checked Box	- [x] Task	<input type="checkbox" checked>	☑ Task
Unchecked Box	- [] Task	<input type="checkbox" unchecked>	☐ Task

How to use tables

1. To make the headers, write the column names separated with | symbols like this: Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
2. Add the alignment indicators, also separated with | symbols:
3. Left aligned: :---
4. Right aligned: ---:
5. Center: :---:
6. Enter the content with more | tags

An example of a completed table is:

Left | Center | Right |
:--- | :---: | ---: |
Left-aligned text | Center-aligned text | Right-aligned text |
Column 1 | 2 | 3 |

And, it renders as:

Left	Center	Right
Left-aligned text	Center-aligned text	Right-aligned text
Column 1	2	3

"How do I practice this?"

"How do I practice this?" is a question you are probably asking right now, or definitely will in the future. The way you practice is simply by using Markdown in your daily life. Instead of pulling up a WYSIWYG editor like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, you could use Markdown.

Conclusion

Markdown is a valuable tool in many areas, and you just learned some of it. You’ll eventually realize that Markdown isn’t really as hard as it seems.

I originally wrote this article and expected it to be published while I was at a sleepaway camp, but there was an issue with the scheduler, and it was not published. This article has been manually published after I returned home from the sleepaway camp in question.

Comments

[Tyler N]

What's the reason you want to learn Markdown? Or did you just read this for fun?