UtilitiesMarkdown

Websites are written in HTML, which is a document specification language that supports many embellishments like boldface, italics, numbered lists, links, etc. HTML can be difficult to read directly, however, because the markers are quite obtrusive. Here's a (silly) example to illustrate the point:

Markdown was invented in 2004 by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz as a tool for specifying rich text (boldface, italics, links, etc.) in a plain text file that is easy to read and write. Here's the example above in Markdown:

The *quick* brown fox **jumped** over the lazy `dog`.

Markdown has since become a lingua franca among developers and data scientists. For example, forum content on GitHub is specified in Markdown. Rather than having a single rich-text editor, the user is presented with a plain text editor and a Preview tab to see how the Markdown will render in the forum:

Markdown rules

The list of essential Markdown rules is pretty short:

Boldface is indicated with double underscores or double asterisks: __This text is bold__ or **This text is bold**.

For italics, use underscores or asterisks: _This text is italic_ or *This text is italic*.

Headers are indicated with a number of hashmarks followed by a space and the header text. Top-level headers use a single hashmark, and using more hashmarks makes the resulting font size increasingly small
```
# Top-level title
## Section 1
### Subsection
## Section 2
```

Links use square brackets around the text to be displayed and parentheses around the URL to be linked: [Click here](http://www.google.com).

Images are included using the link syntax preceded by an exclamation point. The contents of the square brackets are used as alt-text (the text that appears if there's an issue loading the image).
```
![a tiger](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Tiger.50.jpg)
```

Blockquotes are marked with a greater-than sign at the beginning of the line:
```
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge." -Albert Einstein
```

Bullet lists are achieved with an asterisk and a space at the beginning of each line containing a list item:
```
* Limits
* Differentiation
* Integration
```

Numbered lists use numbers instead of asterisks. Numbers are assigned sequentially when the list is rendered, so you can use 1 for every list item in the source file. For nested lists, indent two spaces:
```
1. Limits
1. Differentiation
  1. Power rule
  2. Product rule
  3. Chain rule
1. Integration
  1. Power rule
  1. Substitution
  1. Integration-by-parts
```

Inline code is surrounded by backticks, as in "try the `sqrt` function". Code blocks are surrounded by three backticks, with an optional language name following the first set:
```
```python
import numpy as np
np.sqrt(3)
```
```

A single newline character is ignored by default, so that you can break up the lines of a paragraph however you want without affecting the output. To separarate paragraphs, put a blank line between them. To force a line break without a paragraph break, put two spaces just before the newline.

Exercise
Answer each of the following questions about Markdown.

Code fences are marked using .
Markdown will automatically correct the numbering in your numbered lists .
The syntax for inserting an image is an followed by containing the followed by containing the .
The syntax for inserting links is containing the followed by containing the .
Inline code is indicated using .
Section headings are indicated using followed by a .
For boldface or italics, use or underscores (or asterisks), respectively.

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UtilitiesMarkdown

Markdown rules