Markdown Overview

Markdown Overview

Markdown is a plain text formatting language that allows you to format text with simple syntax. It was created by John Gruber in 2004. Documents written in Markdown can be exported to various formats including HTML, Word, images, PDF, and Epub. Markdown files typically have the .md or .markdown extension.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

1. Being plain text, Markdown ensures consistent formatting across different platforms, allowing writers to focus on writing without worrying about layout issues.
2. Simple to use. For example, in WYSIWYG editors, adding a heading involves selecting the text and clicking a button, which takes three steps. In Markdown, you simply add a # before the heading text.
3. Readable, concise, portable, and widely supported by the community.

Disadvantages:

1. Requires learning some syntax (though it's very simple and can be learned quickly by users familiar with programming).
2. Some platforms do not support Markdown editing, so you need tools that support Markdown editors.
3. Poor compatibility and reliance on specific software for editing environments.

Markdown Editors

This tutorial will use the VSCode editor to explain Markdown syntax. VSCode supports MacOS, Windows, and Linux platforms and includes various themes. It comes with built-in Markdown document editing features and native syntax highlighting.

VSCode (Visual Studio Code) is a free, cross-platform source code editor developed by Microsoft.

• VSCode Tutorial: https://www.webcode101.com/html/html-editors.htm
• VSCode Official Site: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Test Example

In the upcoming tests, we will first install the Markdown All in One plugin in VSCode to enable enhanced features.

Click the Extensions button on the right sidebar, search for the Markdown All in One plugin, and click install:

If you prefer, you can also install the Markdown Preview Enhanced plugin or use the free open-source Markdown editor MarkText.