How Markdown’s simple syntax revolutionized technical documentation

From blogs to wikis, one markup language changed everything. Why do millions still rely on its 20-year-old design for clarity and speed?

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2025 November 9 . 7:09 PM

1 min read

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How Markdown’s simple syntax revolutionized technical documentation

Markdown, a lightweight markup language, was created in 2004 by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. It's widely used for readability, converting plain text into HTML or other rich-text formats using simple text syntax. Initially designed for blogs and message boards, it's now a foundation for wikis and project documentation.

Markdown's core syntax includes line breaks, paragraphs, text emphasis, headings, links, and lists. It supports variants like CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown, which extend the standard with useful features. However, the core specification lacks features like tables and footnotes. Markdown documents are plain text files, compatible with ASCII and UTF-8 encoding. Another common use is project documentation, with tools like MkDocs employing it as their core format.

The original Markdown was a Perl-based script, but now libraries are available for numerous programming languages. It was publicly released on 19 March 2004.

Markdown's simplicity and readability have made it a popular choice for various platforms. Its core syntax remains limited, but variants and extensions provide additional functionality. As a plain text format, it's widely supported and easy to use, making it an ideal choice for many applications.