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This article is intended to give you a very basic rundown of some key concepts of Markdown, as well as provide insight into using Markdown/start blogging within the Jekyll website theme I developed: Simpol Theme.
Markdown is a simple, plain text formatting language. Out of the box, Jekyll - a static website generator - supports and converts Markdown into HTML.
The best way to understand Markdown? Check out a file written in it, I know you’ll catch on quickly.
Markdown examples:
H1
H2
H3
H4
H5
Here’s how those headings, above, very simply came to be.
# H1
## H2
### H3
#### H4
##### H5
What about that ^ horizontal rule? Simple, just add 3 or more hyphens, astericks, or underscores!
---
___
***
Are you seeing this bolded and italicized text, throughout?
Yeah, Markdown.
And yes, easy.
To bold some text, either add two __underscores__ or **asterisks** around the content.
Similarly, to italicize text, add a single group of _underscores_ or *asterisks* around the content.
Here’s how it renders:
To bold some text, either add two underscores or asterisks around the content.
Similarly, to italicize text, add a single group of underscores or asterisks around the content.
Here’s how I’m adding the code/syntax highlighting throughout this post, in Markdown.
"```"
For code blocks, add 3 back-ticks around the block, like so (eliminating the quotation marks, ending up solely with 3 back-ticks ```). Look familiar, Slack users?
"```"
For general syntax highlighting and code blocks, add 3 back-ticks around the block, without specifying a particular language.
<div class="example">
<p>Hello world...</p>
</div>
I’ve developed Simpol Theme to be intentionally light-weight, no syntax highlighting add-ons are included in the current version.
For inline code, simply add a single group of back-ticks `around the code`.
For inline code, simply add a single group of back-ticks around the code.
Need to add links inline or throughout your post? Here’s how!
[Simpol Theme repo - inline link](https://github.com/scottmathson/simpol-theme)
[Simpol Theme repo - inline link with title tag](https://github.com/scottmathson/simpol-theme "Simpol Theme repo")
Simply paste a link within angle brackets: <https://github.com/scottmathson/simpol-theme>
Simpol Theme repo - inline link
Simpol Theme repo - inline link with title tag
Simply paste a link within angle brackets: https://github.com/scottmathson/simpol-theme
Again, this look at Markdown is intended to give you a very basic rundown of some key concepts of Markdown, alongside providing support for Simpol Theme users.
Other resources
For further markdown reading, I highly recommend you check out one of the greatest reference guides/resources that I’ve found, to-date: markdown cheatsheet.