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Markdown Syntax Guide

A concise Markdown cheat sheet: headings, bold, lists, links, images, code and tables — with examples you can try in a live editor.

By the ToolsHub team · Updated May 1, 2026

Markdown is a lightweight way to format plain text using simple symbols that convert cleanly to HTML. It's the standard for READMEs, documentation and many note apps. Try any of this in our live Markdown Editor.

The essentials

# Heading, ## Subheading — one # per level.
**bold** and *italic*.
- item for bullets; 1. item for numbered lists.
[link text](https://example.com) for links.
![alt](image.png) for images.
> quote for a blockquote.
Backticks for inline code, and triple backticks for a code block.

Tables

GitHub-flavoured Markdown supports tables with pipes and dashes: | Column | Value | on one line, |--------|-------| under it, then a row per line.

Converting to and from HTML

When your content lives in Markdown but a CMS needs HTML, use Markdown to HTML. Moving the other way — pulling content out of a web page into a README — use HTML to Markdown.

Try the tool

Markdown Editor →Markdown to HTML →HTML to Markdown →