Markdown Formatting and What You Need to Know - CommonMark Spec

The Issue

A long time ago, whenever I downloaded a tool from the internet and unpacked it, there would often be a file named "README.MD" and the uploader would always advise to read the contents to understand how to use it. At that time, I was only curious about the .MD extension because it was just a regular text file, so why not .TXT!?

A little later, when I learned how to use GitHub, I read many recommendations to create a "README.MD" file to provide a brief description of the project. Back then, my writing style was simply using bullet points to summarize the main points. I started noticing other repositories on GitHub because, when accessed, they displayed scientific and attractive descriptions. That was when I learned about Markdown.

After using it for a while, I realized that Markdown is a wonderful concept and brings many benefits. Therefore, today I would like to write an article about this formatting, why it should be used, and give those who have known about Markdown but haven't paid much attention to it a chance to learn more about this formatting.

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a simple markup language created by John Gruber in 2004 with the purpose of easily writing and reading documents that can be converted to HTML or other formats.

Markdown allows you to easily create text using characters to mark styles, sizes, formats, links, images, etc. Markdown can be used in various scenarios, including writing blogs, technical documents, forum posts, and note-taking.

You will find Markdown appearing frequently in the source code of software and projects. One reason is that it is easy to write, and the other is its ability to convert dull text lines into dynamic web pages.

Why Use Markdown?

Markdown helps writers focus on content rather than worrying about text formatting. When using popular text editors like Word, you have to write while using feature buttons or tools to align, format, create headers, lists, etc. With Markdown, you only need to follow rules and enclose the text between characters that represent formatting actions. Additionally, Markdown is easy to learn and use, requiring minimal technical knowledge.

For example, a formatted text section as a header in Markdown would be:

# Heading
## Subheading
### Sub-subheading

There are many reasons why Markdown should be used. Here are some of them:

• Easy to learn and write: Markdown is a simple and easy-to-learn markup language. Writing text in Markdown is also very easy and quick, without the need for complex software. Anything can be written as long as you can create and save character files.
• Easy conversion to different formats: Markdown can be easily converted to various formats such as HTML, PDF, LaTex, EPUB, etc.
• Focus on content: Writers can focus on writing rather than worrying about text formatting.
• Supports various formatting styles: Markdown supports many features such as creating headers, bold and italic text, creating lists, creating links, inserting images, including source code, creating tables, etc.
• Easy to manage: Markdown is a simple text format that is easy to manage, track, and modify. There are many software tools that support the management of Markdown files very well.

In conclusion, using Markdown has many benefits, helping writers focus on content, enabling easy conversion to different formats, and being suitable for various purposes.

Limitations of Markdown

Although Markdown has many advantages, it also has some limitations.

Being just a simple text file, it is difficult for Markdown to meet various formatting needs like when using a regular text editor. It lacks features like aligning margins, character spacing, line spacing, and many others.

Without a real-time conversion tool, text written in Markdown can be difficult to understand due to the formatting characters used.

In summary, Markdown may not be suitable for cases that require complex formatting, but it can be very useful when the focus is on content.

CommonMark Spec

Since Markdown was created by John Gruber, his version can be considered the most standard one. In reality, relying solely on it has limitations in terms of features, especially with today's increasing formatting needs.

That is why many individuals and organizations have tried to enhance Markdown with additional features. Among them, CommonMark, a "standard" version of Markdown, is particularly well-known. It was created to ensure consistency among different Markdown editors and to make creating and displaying Markdown documents more uniform.

CommonMark provides a common set of rules for Markdown documents, helping Markdown editors interpret and display these document formats consistently.

In other words, CommonMark is considered a high-quality and reliable Markdown standard. Markdown editors such as Visual Studio Code, Atom, Sublime Text, and Emacs all support CommonMark and its new features.

If you are using Markdown for writing or publishing on multiple supported platforms, considering CommonMark will give you more formatting options for your documents.

Conclusion

Markdown is a simple markup language widely used for creating documents on various platforms. Markdown is easy to learn and write, with certain limitations and advantages. CommonMark is one of the "efforts" to create a standard for Markdown formatting, aiming to standardize the way of writing and displaying text across different environments.