A Media History Blog from NYU

Markdown Cheat Sheet

January 31, 2018, by Moacir

You should write your blog posts in Markdown and get in the habit of using it. Here are some of the most commonly used ways to write things:

Text formatting

If I want to write in _italics_, I surround it by underscores.

For **bold**, I use **2** asterisks.

creates:

If I want to write in italics, I surround it by underscores.

For bold, I use 2 asterisks.

There are three kinds of links: to webpages, to images on the internet, and to footnotes on the page.

Linking to webpages

Writing some text in honor of [NYU](http://nyu.edu).

creates:

Writing some text in honor of NYU.

As you can see, the “NYU” part makes up the text of the link, in “[]” brackets, and the parentheses is where you put the url.

Linking to images

The syntax is identical, except you add an exclamation point:

![Bobst Library](https://i.imgur.com/YRWsb6k.jpg)

creates:

Bobst Library

Here, “Bobst Library” appears as text to describe the image for people who have impaired vision. Note that the image has to have a URL. I recommend uploading images to imgur.com and then using those urls for images.

Linking to footnotes

Footnotes are a bit trickier, since while you’re writing, you can add a quick marker to a footnote, but you have to define the footnote elsewhere:

This is some text I am writing about a footnote[^footnote-about-footnotes]

[^footnote-about-footnotes]: This is the text of the footnote.

creates:

This is some text I am writing about a footnote1

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the footnote. You can call the footnotes whatever you want, but that name has to be in “[]” brackets, can’t have spaces, and has to begin with a “^” caret.

Headers

# This is a header

## This is a subheader

###### This is six levels down

creates:

This is a header

This is a subheader

This is six levels down

Blockquotes

> A blockquote begins with a “>” symbol and continues until a blank line. For
multiple paragraph blockquotes, keep adding “>” symbols.

creates:

A blockquote begins with a “>” symbol and continues until a blank line. For multiple paragraph blockquotes, keep adding “>” symbols.

Lists

Finally, lists. Much like how blockquotes begin with a “>”, lists begin with either a “*” or a “1.” depending on whether you want an unordered or ordered list.

* This
* is
* an
* unordered list

creates:

  • This
  • is
  • an
  • unordered list
1. This
4. is
5. an ordered
1. list. Notice
100. that the numbers
2. don’t matter

creates:

  1. This
  2. is
  3. an ordered
  4. list. Notice
  5. that the numbers
  6. don’t matter

There’s a whole lot more that Markdown can do, but this should cover most of your bases for this course.

  1. This is the text of the footnote. ↩

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