What is Markdown

Markdown is a markup language for writing simple formatted documents without having to use a GUI to designate text as bold, italics, etc. This is great for writing documents quickly without losing time reaching for a mouse and writing formatted content across many platforms in a standard way.

Use Cases for Markdown:

• Can be used to write documentation on Github.com and similar platforms. (as .md files, the main page of a repo is always a readme.md file)
• Can be used in slack/discord messages to quickly create code snippets and bold text
• Can be used in writing content on collaboration tools like Notion/Trello/Asana
• Can be used in notetaking apps like Boostnote and Obsidian
• Can be used to format text on social networks like reddit
• Is can be used for content writing with most static site generators (I use Gatsby for tuts.alexmerced.com) and popular developer blogging site dev.to also uses markdown for adding content.

The point is, especially if your a developer but not exclusively learning how to write content using markdown is a skills that opens up new possibilities in the tools you are probably already using making your life easier and more productive.

How to Write Markdown

Whether in a .md file (a file type which is supported by many platforms/software but VSCode is probably the best tool to start with if you are a developer or use HackMD - Online Markdown Editor) or on any of the previously mentioned platforms that support markdown all you have to do is just start writing markdown and it will just work.

For example, there are six sizes of headings.

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 2

Heading Level 3

Heading Level 4

Heading Level 5

Heading Level 6

This is as simple as writing the following:

# Heading Level 1
## Heading Level 2
### Heading Level 3
#### Heading Level 4
##### Heading Level 5
###### Heading Level 6

See that nice code-block above that is done by wrapping text in three backticks before and after the code-block. A back-tick the slightly backwards single quote that is above your tab key with the ~ tilde.

See this chart?

This was written like so…

| Column 1 | Column 2 |
|----------|----------|
| Some Info | Some Info 2 |
| More Info | More Info 2 |

How about some bold or italic text?

How about some **bold** or *italic* text?

How about this link to my youtube channel

[How about this link to my youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoc4UCEetAt3htM3hV1dQgQ)

Of this photo…

![Small Photo Alt Text](https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/small-shrinking-currency-dollar-in-inflation-on-white-background-picture-id174672992?b=1&k=20&m=174672992&s=170667a&w=0&h=b-CcObjDfgFS4qFbnJM5GEKwO9vSU3Ckanfo9nVI7o4=)

The best part is if your not sure how to do something with markdown, you can use HTML.

<center>This text was centered with html</center>

Conclusion

Markdown is very easy to use and its portability and convienience can help maximize your productivity!