Markdown Syntax You Probably Don't Know: Beyond Bold and Headers

Most developers know the basics of Markdown: # for headers, ** for bold, * for italic, - for lists. But Markdown has features that many people use daily without ever discovering. I write everything in Markdown -- documentation, blog posts, project proposals, meeting notes -- and I still find syntax I had overlooked. Here are the features that made the biggest difference in my writing once I learned them. Tables Markdown tables look like ASCII art, but they render into clean HTML tables: | Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------------|--------------------| | GET | /api/users | List all users | | POST | /api/users | Create a user | | DELETE | /api/users/:id | Delete a user | You can align columns by adding colons to the separator row: | Left | Center | Right | |:-------|:-------:|-------:| | data | data | data | Left-aligned is the default. A colon on the right gives you right-alignment. Colons on both sides give you center-alignment. This is particularly useful for numeri