Markdown
cheat sheet.

Everything the converter understands, with an example of each. It follows GitHub-flavoured Markdown, so the same syntax works on GitHub, in most note apps and in most editors.

Text

Markdown	Result
`bold and __bold__`	bold and bold
`italic and _italic_`	italic and italic
`~~strikethrough~~`	~~strikethrough~~
`inline code`	`inline code`
`Line one\ Line two`	A backslash (or two trailing spaces) at the end of a line forces a line break.

Separate paragraphs with a blank line. A single line break inside a paragraph is ignored.

Headings

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4

Up to six levels. Put a space after the #. Headings drive the structure of most exports: Word heading styles, PowerPoint slides, EPUB chapters and Excel sheet names.

Lists

Markdown	Result
`- Apples - Pears - Conference`	Apples Pears Conference
`1. First 2. Second 3. Third`	First Second Third
`- [x] Done - [ ] To do`	☒ Done ☐ To do

Indent a nested item by two spaces (bullets) or three spaces (numbers). Numbered lists start at the first number you write.

Links and images

[Link text](https://example.com)
<https://example.com>
![Alt text](https://example.com/photo.png)

The converter does not download images, for security reasons. In the HTML export the image address is kept. Elsewhere, only images embedded as a data: URI are included; other images show their alt text.

Code

```python
def greet(name):
    return f"Hello, {name}"
```

Three backticks open and close a code block. The word after the opening backticks names the language and turns on syntax highlighting in PDF, HTML, Word and LaTeX.

Tables

| Product | Qty | Price |
|:--------|----:|------:|
| Apples  |   3 |  1.20 |
| Pears   |  12 |  0.85 |

The second line separates the header from the rows. Colons set the alignment: :--- left, ---: right, :---: centred. The columns don't need to line up in the source.

Quotes, rules and footnotes

> A block quote.

---

A claim that needs a source.[^1]

[^1]: The source.

--- on its own line draws a horizontal rule; in PowerPoint it starts a new slide.

Math

The area is $\pi r^2$.

Math between dollar signs is written in TeX notation. It becomes real math in LaTeX and is approximated with formatted text in the other formats.

Front matter

---
title: Quarterly report
author: Jane Doe
date: 2026-10-01
lang: en
---

# Introduction

A YAML block at the very top sets the document's metadata. It becomes the title block in Word, ODT and LaTeX, a title slide in PowerPoint and the book details in EPUB.

Escaping

\*not italic\*  \# not a heading  1\. not a list

Put a backslash in front of a character to show it literally instead of as formatting.

Try it

Paste any of the examples into the converter and download the result in the format you need.

Markdowncheat sheet.