Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents. Created by John Gruber in 2004, Markdown is now one of the world’s most popular markup languages.

Using Markdown is different from using a WYSIWYG editor. In an application like Microsoft Word, you click buttons to format words and phrases, and the changes are visible immediately. Markdown isn’t like that. When you create a Markdown-formatted file, you add Markdown syntax to the text to indicate which words and phrases should look different.

For instance, to denote a heading, you add a number sign before it (e.g., # Heading One). Or to make a phrase bold, you add two asterisks before and after it (e.g., **this text is bold**). 

You can use Markdown when writing questions and answers to emphasize certain elements with italic, bold, or striking elements. You may find the most common Markdown syntax elements in the table below. For the full version of Markdown syntax in case, if you want to add features not included in the table, you may visit this site. Please note that you can not underline words in Markdown.