Markdown is a text markup language
with an emphasis on being easy for humans to read
[@Gruber2004].

Compared to word processors like Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer,
Markdown authoring stores both content and markup together
in a human-readable tekst file.

::: {#fig-formality}

```
informal        /---------formatted text----------\        formal
<------v-------------v-------------v-----------------------v---->
 plain text     informal markup   formal markup    binary format
                (Markdown)        (HTML, XML, etc.)
```

Markdown is informal, ASCII-based markup
[@Leonard2016, p. 4]

:::

HTML is itself a plaintext format,
but is less human-readable.
Similarly the format LaTeX is also plaintext,
but its markdown arguably distracts the reading process
[@Mailund2019chap2, p. 9].

## Alternatives

Other human-readable document source formats exists.

FIXME reStructuredText.  
FIXME Org-mode.  
FIXME AsciiDoc.

## Integration

Markdown is in widespread use.

Major source forges use Markdown by default for `README` files
[@Github2025; @GitLab2025; @Codeberg2024].
Some major programming languages
natively support Markdown in embedded docstrings
in core tools
[@Microsoft2023; @Oracle2025; @RustTeam2024];
others offer optional support e.g. through plugins
[@Heesch2025; @Sphinx2025; @JSDoc2023].