Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for formatting text on the web.

Why Markdown?

Markdown is an essential tool for data analysts and developers. With its simple syntax and powerful features, Markdown is easy to learn, widely used, and perfect for creating structured documents and web content.

For data analysts and developers:

  • Markdown is an invaluable skill for creating clear and concise documentation of our work.
  • Markdown skills help communicate our findings more effectively to colleagues and stakeholders, and make our work more accessible and engaging to others.

Markdown for READMEs

  • Markdown can be used to create professional README.md files to introduce our project repositories on GitHub.
  • README.md files help others understand the purpose of our project, its features, and how to use it.

Markdown for Jupyter Notebooks

  • Markdown is widely used in Jupyter Notebooks, a popular tool for data analysis and scientific computing.
  • With Markdown, we can create rich and informative narratives alongside our code and visualizations.

Basic Markdown Syntax

Markdown uses plain text formatting to create headers, lists, links, and other formatting elements. Here are some basic syntax elements of Markdown:

Headers

Headers are used to create headings or subheadings in your document. To create a header, use the # symbol followed by a space and the text for your heading. Markdown supports up to six levels of headers.

# This is a level one header
## This is a level two header
### This is a level three header
#### This is a level four header
##### This is a level five header
###### This is a level six header

Lists

Lists are used to create ordered and unordered lists in your document. To create a list, use either the * symbol or the - symbol for an unordered list, or use numbers for an ordered list.

An unordered list in Markdown is created by using the “- " syntax (“dash space”), followed by the list item.

- Item 1
- Item 2
- Item 3

An ordered list in Markdown is created by using the “1. " syntax (“one dot space”), followed by the list item. Markdown will automatically increment the number of each item in the list as the page is rendered, ensuring that the numbers are displayed correctly. This makes it easy to create numbered lists in Markdown without having to manually adjust the numbers.

1. Item 1
1. Item 2
1. Item 3

Links are used to create hyperlinks in your document. To create a link, use square brackets to enclose the link text, followed by the link URL in parentheses.

[Markdown: Getting Started](https://www.markdownguide.org/getting-started/)

Images

Images are used to display images in your document. To add an image, use an exclamation point, followed by square brackets to enclose the alt text, and the image URL in parentheses.

![Alt Text](image.url)

Advanced Markdown Syntax

Markdown also supports more advanced syntax, such as tables, code blocks, and inline code. Here are some examples of advanced Markdown syntax.

Tables

Tables are used to display data in rows and columns. To create a table, use hyphens (-) for the headers and pipes or vertical bars (|) to separate the columns.

Code Blocks

Code blocks are used to display code in your document. To create a code block, use triple backticks followed by the language name, and then your code. End your code block with triple backticks.


```python
print("Hello, world!")
```

Inline Code

Inline code is used to display code within a paragraph. To create inline code, use single backticks (`) to enclose your code.


Use the `print()` function to print a message to the console.

Free Resources for Learning Markdown

Free Resources for Learning GitHub-Flavored Markdown

File Extensions

  • .md
  • .markdown