Markdown

Markdown is a plain-text formatting language created by John Gruber in 2004 that lets you write formatted content using simple symbols: # for headings, ** for bold, - for bullet points, and so on. The text you write gets automatically converted into properly structured HTML, which is what browsers actually render. It’s become the standard for writing documentation, blog posts, and content across platforms like GitHub, Notion, and most modern website builders.

The Simple Version

Markdown is a shorthand for formatting text. Instead of clicking a “Bold” button like in Word, you wrap a word in asterisks: **bold** becomes bold. A # at the start of a line makes it a heading. A - makes a bullet point.

It’s like texting, but with a few extra symbols that turn plain text into nicely formatted documents.

Why It Matters

Markdown is everywhere in the tech world. GitHub uses it. Notion uses it. Slack uses a version of it. Most blogs (including this one) are written in Markdown. Once you learn a handful of symbols, you can format text anywhere without touching a toolbar.

It’s also future-proof. Markdown files are just plain text. They’ll open on any computer, in any app, forever. No “.docx compatibility issues” to worry about.

How It’s Used on This Site

Every blog post and glossary entry on this site is written in Markdown. The files sit in a folder, each one containing the text content plus a small header with metadata (title, date, tags). Astro reads those files and turns them into the styled pages you see now.