Markdown Cheat Sheet: Complete Syntax Reference

This is the Markdown syntax reference you’ll want to bookmark. Every major element — from basic text formatting to tables and code blocks — with examples you can copy directly into your editor.

Headings

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

Use H1 for the document title. H2 for major sections. H3 for subsections. Most renderers style H4–H6 as smaller bold text.

Text Formatting

**Bold text**
*Italic text*
***Bold and italic***
~~Strikethrough~~
`Inline code`

Bold text — **text** or __text__

Italic text — *text* or _text_

Bold and italic — ***text***

~~Strikethrough~~ — ~~text~~

Inline code — backticks around the text

Paragraphs and Line Breaks

First paragraph.

Second paragraph — separated by a blank line.

Line with a hard break  
(two trailing spaces before the newline)

A blank line creates a new paragraph. Two spaces at the end of a line force a line break without a new paragraph.

Lists

Unordered list — use -, *, or +:

- Item one
- Item two
  - Nested item
  - Another nested item
- Item three

Ordered list — use numbers:

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

The actual numbers don’t matter — 1. 1. 1. renders as 1. 2. 3.. But using sequential numbers is better for readability in source.

Task list (GitHub Flavored Markdown):

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

Links

[Link text](https://example.com)
[Link with title](https://example.com "Tooltip text")
[Reference-style link][ref-id]

[ref-id]: https://example.com

Bare URLs are auto-linked in many parsers: https://example.com

Images

![Alt text](image.jpg)
![Alt text](image.jpg "Optional title")
![Reference image][img-ref]

[img-ref]: image.jpg

Alt text is required for accessibility. It describes the image for screen readers and appears when the image fails to load.

Code

Inline code:

Use `console.log()` to debug.

Fenced code block (with optional language):

```javascript
function greet(name) {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`;
}
```

Common language identifiers: javascript, python, bash, html, css, json, sql, markdown.

Indented code block (4 spaces or 1 tab — legacy syntax):

    function oldStyle() {
      return true;
    }

Fenced code blocks (triple backticks) are preferred over indented blocks.

Blockquotes

> Single-line quote

> Multi-line quote
> continues here
>
> Second paragraph in the same quote

>> Nested quote inside the outer one

Tables

| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
| :------- | :------: | -------: |
| Left     | Center   |    Right |
| data     | data     |     data |

Alignment: :--- left, :---: center, ---: right.

Horizontal Rule

Three or more hyphens, asterisks, or underscores on their own line:

---
***
___

Escaping Special Characters

Backslash escapes any Markdown character:

\*Not italic\*
\# Not a heading
\`Not code\`

Characters that need escaping: \ * _ {} [] () # + - . !

HTML in Markdown

Most parsers allow raw HTML inline:

<strong>Bold via HTML</strong>
<em>Italic via HTML</em>
<br>
<mark>Highlighted text</mark>

Useful for elements Markdown doesn’t support natively (highlight, subscript, superscript, color).

Footnotes (Extended Syntax)

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

[^1]: This is the footnote text.

Supported in GitHub Flavored Markdown and most extended parsers (Pandoc, MultiMarkdown).

Definition Lists (Extended Syntax)

Term
: Definition of the term

Another term
: Its definition

Not universally supported — check your renderer.

Quick Reference Card

Element	Syntax
H1 heading	`# Title`
H2 heading	`## Section`
Bold	`text`
Italic	`text`
Bold italic	`*text*`
Strikethrough	`~~text~~`
Inline code	`code`
Code block	```lang
Link	`[text](url)`
Image	`![alt](url)`
Blockquote	`> text`
Unordered list	`- item`
Ordered list	`1. item`
Table	`\| col \| col \|`
Horizontal rule	`---`
Line break	two trailing spaces

Try Every Syntax Element

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