Markdown Cheat Sheet: Your Quick Guide to Markdown Syntax

Markdown Cheat Sheet

Markdown is a lightweight syntax for formatting plain text that is easy to read and write. Applivery supports Markdown in Publications and text fields to enrich your content without needing to write HTML.

This page is a quick reference for the most commonly used Markdown elements. For the full specification, see John Gruber's original spec and the GitHub-flavored Markdown guide.

Basic Syntax

These are the core elements supported by all Markdown applications.

Headings

Use # symbols to define headings. The number of # symbols corresponds to the heading level (1–6).

# H1
## H2
### H3
#### H4
##### H5
###### H6

Emphasis

Italic text with *asterisks* or _underscores_.

Bold text with **asterisks** or __underscores__.

Combined bold and italic with **asterisks and _underscores_**.

Strikethrough with two tildes: ~~strikethrough~~.

Renders as:

Italic text with asterisks or underscores.

Bold text with asterisks or underscores.

Combined bold and italic with asterisks and underscores.

Strikethrough with two tildes: strikethrough.

Horizontal Rules

Any of the following produce a horizontal divider line:

___

---

***

Lists

Ordered list:

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item

Unordered list — asterisks, hyphens, and plus signs all work:

* Item using asterisk
- Item using hyphen
+ Item using plus

Nested list:

1. First ordered item
2. Second ordered item
   - Unordered sub-item
   - Another sub-item
3. Third ordered item
   1. Ordered sub-item

Links

[Link text](https://www.example.com)

[Link text with tooltip](https://www.example.com "Tooltip text")

Bare URLs are also automatically converted to links in most Markdown renderers:

https://www.example.com
<https://www.example.com>

Images

![Alt text](https://www.example.com/image.png)

![Alt text with tooltip](https://www.example.com/image.png "Tooltip text")

The alt text is displayed if the image fails to load and is also used by screen readers.

Code

Inline code — wrap text in single backticks:

Use the `code` tag for inline snippets.

Code blocks — wrap with triple backticks. Optionally specify a language for syntax highlighting:

```javascript
const greeting = "Hello, world!";
console.log(greeting);
```

```python
greeting = "Hello, world!"
print(greeting)
```

```
No language specified — no syntax highlighting applied.
```

Renders as:

const greeting = "Hello, world!";
console.log(greeting);

greeting = "Hello, world!"
print(greeting)

No language specified — no syntax highlighting applied.

Blockquotes

Use > to create blockquotes. Blockquotes can be nested and can contain other Markdown elements.

> This is a blockquote.
> This line is part of the same quote.

> You can use *italic* and **bold** inside a blockquote.

> First level
>> Nested blockquote

Renders as:

This is a blockquote.
This line is part of the same quote.

You can use italic and bold inside a blockquote.

First level

Nested blockquote

Extended Syntax

These elements extend the basic syntax and are supported by most modern Markdown renderers, including GitHub-flavored Markdown.

Tables

Use pipes | and hyphens - to create tables. The second row defines alignment using colons:

| Left-aligned | Center-aligned | Right-aligned |
|:---|:---:|---:|
| Cell | Cell | Cell |
| Cell | Cell | Cell |

Renders as:

Task Lists

- [x] Completed task
- [ ] Incomplete task
- [ ] Another incomplete task

Renders as:

• Completed task

• Incomplete task

• Another incomplete task

Footnotes

Here is a sentence with a footnote.[^1]

[^1]: This is the footnote content.

Escaping Characters

To display a character that would otherwise be interpreted as Markdown formatting, prefix it with a backslash \:

\*This text is not italicized\*
\# This is not a heading

Characters that can be escaped: \ * _ { } [ ] ( ) # + - . !

Quick Reference