What file uses .md extension and how should I edit them?

Question

On GitHub, several projects have README.md files. It seems like a simple format file to express text and pictures.

I guess there is an editor or syntax

Answer 1

Yup, just GitHub flavored Markdown. Including a README file in your repository will help others quickly determine what it's about and how to install it. Very helpful to include in your repos.

Answer 2

Markdown is just a text file which optionally has .md, or .markdown extensions. It can be converted to HTML. To know syntax of Markdown, Check out

GitHub Flavored Markdown.

You can use any text editor for markdown. If you are sublime text user, you can check out Markdown Preview plugin which will display the rendered markdown content in browser and updates whenever you change the markdown file.

Some of the online markdown editor

• Markable
• dillinger
• markdownviewer

Answer 3

Microsoft's Visual Studio Code text editor has built in support for .md files written in markdown syntax.

The syntax is automatically color-coded inside of the .md file, and a preview window of the rendered markdown can be viewed by pressing Shift+Ctrl+V (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+V (Mac).

To see them side-by-side, drag the preview tab to the right side of the editor, or use Ctrl+K V (Windows) or Cmd+K V (Mac) instead.

VS Code uses the marked library for parsing, and has Github Flavored Markdown support enabled by default, but it will not display the Github Emoji inline like Github's Atom text editor does.

Also, VS Code supports has several markdown plugins available for extended functionality.

Answer 4

I suggest StackEdit. It is simple WISIWIG editor. You can use both editor and markdown syntax. There is a quick markdown help syntax there. Undo/redo, comments, GoogleDrive, Dropbox interconnection.