Markdown basics

What markdown is and the eight essentials — headings, bold, italics, lists, quotes, links, and code — explained with no experience assumed.

If you've seen # or ** in the editor and wondered what they mean, this page is for you. It assumes nothing.

What markdown is

Markdown is a way of formatting text using only ordinary characters. Instead of clicking a "Bold" button, you wrap a word in asterisks: **like this**. Instead of picking "Heading 1" from a menu, you start a line with #.

That's the whole idea. A markdown note is just plain text — you can read it as-is, and any markdown app can display it formatted. It was invented so that text that's easy to write is also easy to read, even before formatting.

Why knowdust uses it:

• Your notes stay yours. A markdown file opens in any text editor, on any computer, forever. No app can hold it hostage — including this one.
• Your hands stay on the keyboard. Formatting is typing, not menu-hunting.
• It's small. You'll use maybe eight symbols for 95% of your writing. They're all below.

In knowdust, you type markdown in Write mode and see the formatted result in Preview (or both at once in Split). Try each example below in a note and flip to Preview to watch it work.

Headings

Start a line with # and a space to make a heading. More #s mean a smaller, deeper heading — like sections and subsections in a document.

# Trip planning

## Things to book

### Flights

Use one # heading as the note's title, ## for its sections, ### for smaller pieces inside them. (It goes to ######, but you'll rarely need more than three levels.)

Bold and italics

Wrap text in two asterisks for bold, one for italics.

This is **important**, and this is *just an aside*.

You can combine them: ***very important*** is bold and italic at once.

Lists

Start each line with - and a space for a bulleted list:

- milk
- bread
- coffee

For a numbered list, use numbers with periods:

1. Preheat the oven
2. Mix everything
3. Wait, impatiently

To nest an item inside another, indent it with two spaces:

- Groceries
  - milk
  - bread
- Hardware store

Quotes

Start a line with > to quote someone — or your past self:

> The best time to write it down was when you thought of it.
> The second best time is now.

Links

Square brackets around the text people see, then parentheses around the address:

Read the [knowdust docs](https://knowdust.com/docs) sometime.

Code

If you write anything technical — a command, a filename, a snippet — wrap it in backticks (`, the key usually above Tab) to set it in typewriter-style text:

Run `pnpm dev` and open the site.

Not technical? Skip this one entirely; nothing else depends on it.

That's genuinely most of it

Headings, bold, italics, lists, quotes, links, code — those eight cover almost everything you'll write. Two ways to keep them handy:

• Press ? in the workspace — the help sheet has this list in compact form.
• Keep the cheatsheet open in a tab.

When you're comfortable, More markdown adds tables, task lists, images, and a few other useful pieces — at the same gentle pace.

Something on this page wrong or unclear? Tell us — it'll be fixed.