MARKDOWN(1)

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, gather round, this is markdown — the glow-up machine that turns your plain text into HTML. That's the whole vibe. convert text to HTML. periodt. 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

markdown [ --html4tags ] [ --version ] [ -shortversion ] [ file ... ]

and if you're being a Perl girlie today:

use Markdown; $html=Markdown::Markdown($text);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Markdown is a text-to-HTML filter, no cap — it takes a structured text format that's genuinely easy to read and easy to write, and translates it into HTML. Its text format is most similar to plain text email, and it supports iconic little features like headers, emphasis, code blocks, blockquotes, and links. it's giving ✨ email from 2003 but make it HTML ✨

Markdown's syntax was designed not as some generic markup language, bestie — it's specifically meant to serve as a front-end to (X)HTML. Which means: you can use span-level HTML tags literally anywhere in a Markdown document, and you can also use block level HTML tags (like <div> and <table>) too. obsessed. 🔥

wanna know more about the syntax? go here:

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

Use "--" to end switch parsing. So for example, if you need to open a file literally named -z, you write:

markdown -- -z

because yes, that filename is a menace, but we respect it. 😭

• --html4tags — use HTML 4 style for empty element tags, like:

<br>

instead of Markdown's default XHTML style tags, like:

<br />

pick your fighter 💅

• -v, --version — display Markdown's version number and copyright information. the receipts, the lore, the origin story 👑
• -s, --shortversion — display the short-form version number. tiny version. pocket-sized. 🍓

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💀 BUGS 💀

Found a bug? Want a feature? (and it's not one of the topics already listed in the Caveats section above — yes girl it says "above", that's literally what the original says, don't come for me 🙈) — then send an email to:

support@daringfireball.net

and pleaseeeee include, because otherwise we're just guessing:

1. the example input;
2. the output you expected;
3. the output Markdown actually produced.

that's it. that's the trio. give us the receipts and we'll fix it. 🫶

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🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

John Gruber
http://daringfireball.net

PHP port and other contributions by Michel Fortin
http://michelf.com

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👑 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 👑

Copyright (c) 2003-2004 John Gruber <http://daringfireball.net/> All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
• Neither the name "Markdown" nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

This software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the copyright owner or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

like, legally speaking, it's "as is" and if it breaks that's on you bestie 😭 but fr fr it's free and open and we love that for us 💖

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and that's the whole page, mwah 💋 this one's running under perl v5.40.1, dated 2025-04-16, and it's filed under MARKDOWN(1) — go forth and convert, you absolute icon 🧚✨