Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating documents on the web. Markdown is written in regular plain text with a few special characters for styling the document. Its design allows it to be converted to many output formats, but markdown files are usually rendered in HTML by a Markdown parser which converts Markdown files into HTML.

Markdown is quickly becoming the writing standard for technical professionals, writers, scientists, academics, etc; because markdown files can easily be accessed across various devices and platforms.

Markdown is often used to format readme files, for writing messages in online discussion forums, and to create rich text using a plain text editor.

On GitHub markup is been used to style documents in places like Gists Comments in Issues and Pull Requests *Files with the .md or .markdown extension

The following are some examples of markdown styles:

Headers

This is an h1 tag

Code

# This is an h1 tag

This is an h3 tag

Code

### This is an h3 tag

This is an h6 tag

Code

###### This is an h6 tag

Emphasis

This text will be italic

*This text will be italic*

This will also be italic

_This will also be italic_

This text will be bold

**This text will be bold**

This will also be bold

__This will also be bold__

You can combine them You can combine them

_You **can** combine them_ You can combine them

Lists

Unordered

Item 1
Item 2
- Item 2a
- Item 2b

* Item 1
* Item 2
  * Item 2a
  * Item 2b

Ordered

Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
1. Item 3a
2. Item 3b

1. Item 1
1. Item 2
1. Item 3
   1. Item 3a
   1. Item 3b

Images

GitHub Logo

![GitHub Logo](https://github.githubassets.com/images/modules/logos_page/Octocat.png)

Links

github.com - automatic!

GitHub

http://github.com - automatic!

[GitHub](http://github.com)

Blockquotes

As Kanye West said:

We're living the future so the present is our past

As Kanye West said:
> We're living the future so
> the present is our past

Inline code

I think you should use an <addr> element here instead

I think you should use an
`<addr>` element here instead

GitHub Flavored Markdown

GitHub.com uses its own version of the Markdown syntax that provides an additional set of useful features, many of which make it easier to work with content on GitHub.com

Username @mentions

Typing an @ symbol, followed by a username, will notify that person to come and view the comment. This is called an “@mention”, because you’re mentioning the individual. You can also @mention teams within an organization.

Tables

You can create tables by assembling a list of words and dividing them with hyphens - (for the first row), and then separating each column with a pipe |:

First Header	Second Header
Content from cell 1	Content from cell 2
Content in the first column	Content in the second column

First Header | Second Header
------------ | -------------
Content from cell 1 | Content from cell 2
Content in the first column | Content in the second column