What is Markdown?

Markdown was created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz in 2004 with a simple goal: make a text format that's readable as plaintext AND convertible to HTML. It has since become the default writing format for developers — used in GitHub READMEs, Notion, Discord, Slack, and virtually every developer tool.

The beauty of Markdown is that you can write structured documents in any text editor without touching a mouse. Headers, lists, links, code blocks, images, tables — all expressed in simple ASCII characters. The CommonMark spec (2014) and GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) added standardized syntax for tables, task lists, and strikethrough.

• # for headers, **bold**, *italic*, [text](url) for links
• Code blocks use triple backticks — syntax highlighting by language name
• Tables use pipes: | Column A | Column B |
• Markdown files (.md) are future-proof — readable even without a renderer