2024-02-18
Most technical writers would agree:
Formatting documentation for maximum readability and professionalism is challenging.
Fortunately, Markdown provides a simple yet powerful system to enhance the clarity and polish of docs for developers and end users alike.
In this post, you'll discover essential Markdown techniques to transform scattered notes into world-class technical documentation.
We'll cover Markdown's core syntax for basic formatting, then level up with tables, tabs, diagrams, and more. You'll also learn best practices for documentation workflows leveraging GitHub, MkDocs, and other popular platforms.
Markdown is a lightweight markup language used to format plain text documents. It uses simple, human-readable syntax to apply basic text formatting elements like headings, lists, links, images, code blocks, and more. Some key benefits of using Markdown include:
Key advantages of using markdown for technical writing include:
Markdown supports both basic and extended syntax elements:
Basic syntax includes headings, paragraphs, lists, highlights like bold and italics, links, images, and code blocks for formatting source documents.
Extended syntax adds additional capabilities like tables, tabs, emoji, diagrams, footnotes, and more. Many platforms like GitHub have also extended markdown in unique ways.
Learning both basic and extended markdown syntax allows flexibly formatting technical documents of any complexity while maintaining readability.
Markdown offers a streamlined workflow for creating technical documentation compared to traditional word processors. Since Markdown formatting is lightweight text, it allows writers to focus on content instead of styling.
Here are some key benefits of using Markdown for docs:
In summary, Markdown streamlines the process of formatting and publishing technical content. Its simple syntax gets out of the way so writers can focus on great documentation.
Markdown is an excellent format for taking notes due to its simplicity and portability.
The Markdown syntax is designed to be easy to read, write, and understand. It uses simple plaintext formatting like asterisks for italics and underscores for bold, avoiding the visual clutter of heavy formatting. This makes it fast and intuitive to write notes in Markdown. The lightweight syntax gets out of the way, letting you focus on your thoughts rather than fiddling with complex formatting options.
Markdown files have the .md or .markdown file extension and can be opened with any plain text editor. This makes notes written in Markdown highly portable across devices and operating systems. You don't need specialized Markdown software to access your notes - a basic text editor is enough. This flexibility makes Markdown a convenient format for working across multiple devices.
In summary, Markdown strikes the perfect balance of being a readable plaintext format while also retaining the ability to render more visually structured documents with minimal effort. These characteristics make Markdown an excellent choice for writable, portable, and future-proof notes.
Markdown is an easy-to-use markup language that is used with plain text to add formatting elements (headings, bulleted lists, URLs) to plain text without the use of a formal text editor or the use of HTML tags. Markdown is device agnostic and displays the writing format consistently across device types.
Markdown allows you to write using a simple plain text editor while still being able to control things like formatting and layout. Some key benefits of using Markdown for documentation include:
Markdown is commonly used for documentation of software projects, especially those hosted on GitHub. It allows developers to write documentation alongside their code using the same tools. Popular markdown editors like Visual Studio Code make it very efficient.
Some examples of where markdown shines for documentation include:
Because it can be easily converted to other formats like HTML, markdown provides a future-proof way to write professional documentation that looks great across devices. The simplicity of the format makes it easy for even non-technical users to contribute.
With Markdown, you write text in a plain text editor (such as vi or Emacs), inserting special characters to create headers, boldface, bullets, and so on. For example, the following example shows a simple technical document formatted with Markdown:
Markdown Toolbox
## bash and ksh
bash closely resembles an older shell named ksh.
Dec 18, 2023
Some key benefits of using Markdown for technical documentation include:
Here are some essential Markdown syntax elements to use when writing technical docs:
# symbol to mark headings and subheadings. More # symbols indicate lower heading levels.**) to make it bold.-), asterisks (*), or numbers to create bulleted or numbered lists.In addition to basic syntax, there are some key extended syntax elements that are very useful:
|) and hyphens (-).Overall, Markdown excels for technical writing thanks to its simple formatting, seamless version control integration, and long-term readability. With just a bit of knowledge, you can produce great looking docs.
Markdown is a lightweight markup language that allows you to format text using simple syntax. It's commonly used for documentation because it's easy to write and read, portable across platforms, and can be converted to HTML. Here's an overview of some basic Markdown formatting to help get you started with documentation.
To structure documents in Markdown, use headings by adding # symbols before the heading text. The more # you use, the smaller and more nested the heading.
# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4
##### Heading 5
###### Heading 6
Group related paragraphs under each heading. Add line breaks between paragraphs.
Use bulleted lists with asterisks (*) or dashes (-) for an unordered list:
* First item
* Second item
* Third item
Use numbered lists for an ordered list:
1. First step
2. Second step
3. Third step
Lists help organize information and make it more scannable.
To add images, use this syntax:
The alt text describes the image for screen readers and if the image fails to load. Use relative paths to link to images in the same directory or full URLs.
To add links, use:
[text to display](https://www.example.com)
To display code samples, use triple backticks before and after the code:
```
// JavaScript code example
const name = "John"
```
Markdown will automatically detect the language to highlight the syntax. This keeps code samples readable and maintainable.
Using these basic Markdown elements will help you format documentation that's easy to write and read. Over time, you can learn more advanced syntax as your needs evolve.
This section explores some more advanced markdown functionality like tables, tabs, diagrams, emoji, footnotes, and other extended syntax elements. These elements can help organize information and make docs more visually engaging.
Tables allow you to arrange information in rows and columns for better visualization. Here is the markdown syntax for creating a basic table:
| Header 1 | Header 2 | Header 3 |
| -------- | -------- | -------- |
| Cell 1 | Cell 2 | Cell 3 |
| Cell 4 | Cell 5 | Cell 6 |
Which renders as:
Header 1
Header 2
Header 3
Cell 1
Cell 2
Cell 3
Cell 4
Cell 5
Cell 6
You can align text to the left, center, or right by adding colons (:) to the header separator row.
Other key table features include:
Overall, tables are great for presenting data-driven content like pricing, specifications, changelogs etc.
Tabs allow you to break up content into logical sections that users can toggle between:
<!-- tabs:start -->
English
Hello!
French
Bonjour!
Spanish
¡Hola!
<!-- tabs:end -->
Rendered tabs:
Hello!
Bonjour!
¡Hola!
This keeps related info together while allowing readers to focus on the part they need.
You can insert diagrams and flowcharts using Markdown extensions like Mermaid:
graph TD;
A-->B;
A-->C;
B-->D;
C-->D;
This provides:
graph TD;
A-->B;
A-->C;
B-->D;
C-->D;
Mermaid supports flowcharts, sequence diagrams, GANTT charts and more. This helps illustrate concepts visually.
Markdown has some extended syntax elements like:
These can make docs more expressive and tailored to specific use cases. But should be used in moderation.
Overall, markdown offers many ways to organize, visualize and enrich documentation as per user needs. But restraint is key, as too many embellishments can reduce clarity.
[^1]: Here is the footnote.
[^html]: HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language.
When writing technical documentation, choosing the right markdown editor can greatly impact your efficiency and workflow. Here are some of the most popular options to consider:
When evaluating markdown editors, consider your platform, customizability needs, preview functionality, exporting capabilities, and integration with existing workflows.
For collaborative documentation projects, GitHub offers built-in Markdown support combined with the power of Git version control. Benefits include:
Overall, GitHub streamlines creating, updating and publishing markdown-based program documentation. Developers can contribute to docs alongside code.
To publish markdown documentation to other formats, Pandoc is an invaluable Swiss Army Knife tool for automated document conversion:
For quickly previewing markdown as a website, use GitHub Pages, MkDocs, ReadTheDocs. To publish as books, use Leanpub or directly upload markdown files to Amazon Kindle. Overall, Pandoc gives you ultimate flexibility over publishing documentation from markdown source files.
Understanding how markdown support varies across different platforms and tools, and how to make the most of it for your documentation needs.
GitHub Pages integrated with Jekyll provides an excellent way to host markdown documentation online as a static website. Some key benefits:
To get started:
With this approach, you can version, collaborate on, and publish markdown documentation as a site in one smooth workflow.
For internal knowledge sharing, markdown shines when used on open source wiki platforms like Wiki.js, Read the Docs, and MkDocs.
Features like:
Make them ideal for creating living handbooks, code documentation, and internal wikis. Structured markdown authoring coupled with these platforms result in intuitive, navigable, and up-to-date knowledge bases.
Markdown support in popular team chat apps like Slack, Discord, and Mattermost makes it easier to:
This leads to more organized and readable conversations around development updates, product changes, troubleshooting details etc.
Best practices are:
Top note-taking apps like Obsidian, Simplenote, and Joplin use markdown for better readability, easier formatting, and plain text longevity.
Benefits include:
For personal or team note-taking, markdown in these apps boost productivity while retaining portability across devices.
Markdown is an essential tool for technical writers, software developers, and content creators. Mastering markdown can help improve workflows and efficiency when working with documentation.
Here are some key takeaways:
Here are some recommended resources to level up your markdown skills: