Markdown依赖于简单的文本语法来格式化文档。与MicrosoftWord这样的环境不同，Markdown使用复杂且人类无法读取的系统来识别斜体等内容，Markdown使用易于识别的标记代码来指示重点和文档结构。

为什么要使用标记格式？

降价的主要好处是它是纯文本格式，这意味着您可以使用任何程序来编写文档，从macOS上的Windows记事本和TextEdit等简单文本编辑器到Linux上的许多选项。像安卓和iOS这样的移动操作系统也有大量处理纯文本的免费应用程序。

您不必担心格式不兼容，因为您应用于写作的格式是纯文本。

降价有几个优点，包括：

• 简单性：Markdown的核心本质上很简单，没有太多的语法需要记住。
• 功能：如果您需要更高级的功能（例如脚注），它的扩展版本（如GitHub风格的标记和多重标记）提供了这一额外功能。
• 平台支持：它在文本编辑器（例如，显示格式化文本的实时预览）和内容管理系统等应用程序中得到了很好的支持，在这些应用程序中，您可以直接在网页中键入标记。

什么是降价(markdown)？

Markdown是对术语markup的一种演绎，专门指HTML。标记语言使用文本代码来指示内容的划分、视觉装饰和嵌入对象（如图像）。例如，一个带有标题的简单网页、一个包含文本句子的区域和一个图像，手工书写会变得很麻烦：

这个简单的页面需要一段代码来向用户呈现一个句子，而不是以一种吸引人的方式。但它是HTML标记，比如

So rather than applying markup to text, you should instead apply the opposite: Markdown. Markdown uses something similar to markup tags but in a compact and writer-friendly way. As an example, the above represented in Markdown would look like this:

One of the principles of Markdown is to be human-readable in source form. And looking at the above, it's clear what's what. The hash mark at the beginning designates a heading, and the asterisks mean emphasis (specifically bold). This convention is something many people do in text messaging, so it's easy to interpret. Even the image, which requires something a little more technical, is easier to understand than the HTML.

A Quick Markdown Formatting Primer

When writing for the web, you can get away with understanding a few main bits of Markdown:

• Headings: Starting a line with a hash mark and a space indicates a heading. One hash means a Level 1 heading, two hashes mean a Level 2 heading, and so forth. Markdown supports up to five levels of headings.
• Bold: Surround some text with double asterisks to make it bold.
• Italics: Surround some text with single asterisks to make it italic.
• Lists: Use dashes or asterisks plus a space for bulleted lists. Otherwise, use numbers with a period and a space. You don't need to order the numbers correctly. Markdown takes care of it on conversion.
• Links: Links use the formula: [link address](the text to be linked). The hardest part is remembering which one gets which type of brackets.
• Images: Images start with an exclamation mark, then hold the image's alt-text in parentheses, with a path to the image in square brackets at the end.

With this tiny bit of Markdown syntax, you have all you need to write an article like this one.

Using Markdown to Create Other Documents

The Markdown project provides a command-line tool to work with Markdown documents. However, this is a command-line utility, so it's not the most convenient. Also, it's written in the somewhat outdated Perl language.

Two other types of apps prove a bit more capable when dealing with Markdown input.

• Pandoc: Among command-line utilities, Pandoc stands out as a virtual Swiss army knife for document conversion. It's worth spending the time to learn. With it, you can output your Markdown files in Word, OpenDocument Text, or PDF formats.
• ReText: You can use any text editor to work in Markdown, but ReText allows you to work in Markdown a little more easily. It's a no-nonsense editor with multiple document tabs and a live preview of your Markdown. It won't export directly to Word format, but you can open an ODT file in Word and save it appropriately.

Markdown Is a Portable Format That's Easy to Work With

Markdown captures your writing wherever you are, regardless of the device you're on. It's best for when you need to focus on your writing, not on the appearance of the final document.

The plain text format is small with respect to file size, portable, and gets you out of the habit of fiddling with fonts until it's time to publish it somewhere. By learning its easy syntax, you'll be equipped to write in content management systems for the web, convert school assignments into attractive PDFs, and everything in between.