Writing Markdown

Now that you have your workspaces set up and created a file, the next step is to simply start writing. Zettlr uses Markdown. More specifically, it uses a superset of various standards called “Pandoc Markdown.”

Even if you have never consciously worked with Markdown, you have surely used it already, because it is omnipresent. Most Chatbots and other LLMs typically produce Markdown code to format their responses. Look at the following text:

# What is Markdown?

Markdown is a **markup language** that can be used to *format* (but not
style!) text documents. It supports every common and some useful syntactic
elements including [links](https://www.zettlr.com), `monospaced text`,
or even more complex elements like blockquotes and lists:

> This is a quotation.

1. List item One
2. A second item
3. Third time's a charm

As you will notice, this text is both easy to read — even in its “raw” form — and easy to write. That’s why a lot of the software you use everyday supports it. For example, you can use Markdown in…

• … Discord messages
• … WhatsApp
• … many forums
• … GitHub
• … Slack
• … ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral, and all other LLMs
• … and more.

To get a quick start to Markdown syntax, we highly recommend the guide from Learn X in Y Minutes. The guide is available in many languages, and everything you see there is supported in Zettlr. If you want to get used to writing clean and unambiguous Markdown, view the specifications by CommonMark. Also, there’s a book on the GitHub flavored Markdown syntax. For those engaged in scholarly writing, the Pandoc manual's section on its extended Markdown is worth reading.

Common Shortcuts for Formatting Text

Most of the time, you don’t have to type out all the formatting characters to make text, say, bold. Zettlr incorporates many common keyboard shortcuts for elements, and some make the process even simpler.

Here is a list of some common shortcuts and how they work in Zettlr:

There are many more available shortcuts. You can find all in the keyboard shortcut reference.

More on Writing Markdown

This page just aims at getting you started in writing Markdown. There is a more comprehensive guide in what Markdown syntax Zettlr supports in the section on the Markdown editor.