This is bold and this is italics. You can even combine both in order to bold a part containing a word in italics, using any combination of the above.

This should be a block quote. It’s used to quote things that other people have said, possibly things that you heard or possibly things you’ve read in a paper, magazine or on-line.

That block quote was created by splitting the quote into multiple lines, each starting with the ‘>’ symbol. This next one has the quote all on 1 line, starting with the ‘>’ symbol.

Or, create a block quote with just one long line, like this one. This should be a block quote. It’s used to quote things that other people have said, possibly things that you heard or possibly things you’ve read in a paper, magazine or on-line.

This is heading one (1)

This is heading two (2)

This is heading three (3)

This is heading four (4)

This is heading five (5)

This is heading six (6)

Here is an unordered list

• unordered list item one using asterisk
• unordered list item two using asterisk
• unordered list item three using asterisk

Here is an ordered list

1. ordered list item one
2. ordered list item two
3. ordered list item three

This is a link to my web page.

Code blocks can be created by
indenting with 4 spaces.  A
blank line before and after
the block is required.

All of the above are Markdown basics. The following are all GFM or GitHub Flavored Markdown.

Although the underscore is normally used for italics, it is ignored when there are multiple ones in a word, such as do_this_and_do_that_and_another_thing.

If all that’s needed is a clickable URL without text, then just enter it, such as http://rtruell.ca/.

Surrounding a word/phrase with two tildes (~) causes strikethrough text, as in the quick brown cat fox jumped over the lazy dog. However, there is no Markdown way to do underline, superscripts or subscripts, so HTML tags must be used, as in underline, E=MC² and H₂O. “Curly” quote marks can be used in place of the ‘regular’ quote marks, as in: John said “I’m going to the store. Anyone else coming?”.

In GFM, you can use fences (3 tildes), instead of indenting 4 spaces, to create a code block, like this:

function test() {
  console.log("notice the blank line before this function?");
}

Note that a blank line before and after the fenced block isn't required, but makes the raw Markdown easier to read.

Note that a scroller appears if it’s needed. You can do syntax highlighting in a code block by adding a language identifier, like this:

require 'redcarpet'
markdown = Redcarpet.new("Hello World!")
puts markdown.to_html

Tables can be created using dashes (-) and pipes (|). Place pipes to create columns and put dashes on the 2nd line to create column headers. Pipes at the start and end of each row can be used for aesthetic purposes, but aren’t needed. The number of dashes used to create the column headers don’t have to match the length of the header text.

With pipes at the start and end of each row:

Without pipes at the start and end of each row:

You can also include inline Markdown such as links, bold, italics, underline or strikethrough:

Finally, by including colons (:) within the header row, you can define text to be left-aligned, centered or right-aligned:

In-line code “blocks” can be created by surrounding the word or phrase with a single tick (`). This is especially useful to empasize programming language keywords or terminal commands that are to be typed in.