Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language created by John Gruber in 2004 with the goal of being readable as-is, while also converting cleanly to HTML. It represents headings with hash characters, bold with asterisks, and links in square-bracket notation. GitHub, documentation platforms, and static site generators adopted Markdown widely, making it one of the most common formats for README files and technical writing.

File extensions	.md, .markdown
MIME type	text/markdown
Developer	John Gruber
First released	2004
Category	Documents
Open standard	Yes

What opens Markdown files

• Visual Studio Code
• Typora
• Obsidian
• Any plain-text editor
• GitHub (rendered automatically)

Browse File Formats

Reference details for 53 file formats — extensions, MIME types, what opens each one, and how they convert.

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