A gentle introduction to Markdown

Markdown has various syntax versions that are supported by different systems and platforms. The one we show here is a general one that is useful throughout many systems, including R Markdown.

What we show in the following examples are the basic elements to structure content using Markdown. The actual aesthetics depend on what styles are being applied to your files. The examples shown as follows don't have any aesthetics applied to them. We will show you how to adjust them for our presentation later in the chapter.

Text

If you want simple text, you can simply write as you normally would. If you want to format the text, you can use pairs of asterisks (*) or underscores (_). The following table shows how to use pairs of asterisks. Underscores work the same way.

If we use the following input:

Text with *italic* text inside.
Text with **bold** text inside.
Text with **bold and *italic* text**.

We get the following output:

Text with italic text inside.

Text with bold...