πŸ“‹ Markdown Cheatsheet

July 7, 2026 Β· View on GitHub

This Markdown cheatsheet is intended as a quick reference and showcase of the Markdown syntax in QOwnNotes.

Headings

Use ATX headings to structure your texts.

# H1

## H2

### H3

#### H4

##### H5

###### H6

H1

H2

H3

H4

H5
H6

The Navigation panel shows the structure of your headings.

Alternatively, for H1 and H2, you can also use Setext headings:

Alt-H1
======

Alt-H2
------

Alt-H1

Alt-H2

By default, QOwnNotes creates the filename of a note from the heading 1 (h1).

Emphasis

Emphasis, aka italics, with *asterisks* or _underscores_.

Strong emphasis, aka bold, with **asterisks** or __underscores__.

Combined emphasis with **asterisks and _underscores_**.

Emphasis, aka italics, with asterisks or underscores.

Strong emphasis, aka bold, with asterisks or underscores.

Combined emphasis with asterisks and underscores.

You can use the shortcut Ctrl + B for making text bold and Ctrl + I for making it italic.

Underline

There also is an optional setting to enable underline rendering in the Preview settings.

_underline_

underline

You can use the shortcut Ctrl + U to underline a text.

Strike out

~~strike out~~

strike out

You can use the shortcut Alt + Shift + S to strike out a text.

Lists

There are many ways to create lists.

(In this example, leading and trailing spaces are shown with dots: β‹…)

1. First ordered list item
2. Another item
   β‹…β‹…* Unordered sub-list
3. Actual numbers don't matter, just that it's a number
   β‹…β‹…1. Ordered sub-list
4. And another item.

β‹…β‹…β‹…You can have properly indented paragraphs within list items. Notice the blank line above, and the leading spaces.

β‹…β‹…β‹…To have a line break without a paragraph, you will need to use two trailing spaces.β‹…β‹…
β‹…β‹…β‹…Note that this line is separate, but within the same paragraph.β‹…β‹…

* Unordered list can use asterisks
- Or hyphens (minuses)
+ Or pluses
  1. First ordered list item

  2. Another item

    • Unordered sub-list
  3. Actual numbers don't matter, just that it's a number

    1. Ordered sub-list
  4. And another item.

    You can have properly indented paragraphs within list items. Notice the blank line above, and the leading spaces.

    To have a line break without a paragraph, you will need to use two trailing spaces.
    Note that this line is separate, but within the same paragraph.

  • Unordered list can use asterisks
  • Or hyphens (minuses)
  • Or pluses

If you press Enter at the end of a list a new list item will be created.

Two of the simpler uses for links are pointing to webpages or other notes. There are multiple ways each of these links can look.

[I'm an inline-style link](https://www.google.com)

[I'm an inline-style link with title](https://www.google.com "Google's Homepage")

[You can use numbers for reference-style link definitions][1]

Plain URLs and URLs in angle brackets will automatically get turned into links in the preview.
http://www.example.com or <http://www.example.com>

[1]: https://www.qownnotes.org

I'm an inline-style link

I'm an inline-style link with title

You can use numbers for reference-style link definitions

Plain URLs and URLs in angle brackets will automatically get turned into links in the preview. http://www.example.com or http://www.example.com

You can link to other notes or attachments like this:

[I link to the Journal.md note](Journal.md)

<Journal.md> works similarly.

I link to the Journal.md note

<Journal.md> works similarly.

You can use the shortcut Ctrl + L to create links to webpages or other notes.

Using Ctrl + Shift + X will bring up a dialog that helps you to insert attachments into your note.

You can press Ctrl + Space while the cursor in on a link in the note edit to follow the link.

Internal links with a title are not supported:

[I link to the Journal.md note](Journal.md "Title not supported")

Bookmarks

The bookmarks used by the QOwnNotes Web Companion browser extension are using links in lists.

- [Webpage name](https://www.example.com) #tag1 #tag2 some description and tags

Images

Images can be embedded into QOwnNotes. They will be shown in the preview.

The following examples use a placeholder path. Insert an image into a real note with Ctrl + Shift + I or paste one with Ctrl + Shift + V to see it rendered here.

![alt text](media/my-image.jpg)

Image dimensions

You can optionally specify a width and/or height for an image using curly-brace attribute syntax right after the closing parenthesis:

![alt text](media/my-image.jpg){ width=300 }

![alt text](media/my-image.jpg){ height=200 }

![alt text](media/my-image.jpg){ width=300 height=200 }

The dimension attributes are displayed with masked (grayed-out) syntax in the editor and are applied in the preview, where they take precedence over the automatic image width sizing.

The image can also be in the clipboard, the insert-image dialog will detect it and show a preview.

Image links with a title are not supported:

![alt text](media/my-image.jpg "Title not supported")

Inline code and code blocks

Inline `code` has `backticks around` it.

Inline code has backticks around it.

You can use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + C on selected inline text or just inside of text to create an inline code block.

Blocks of code are either fenced by lines with three backticks, or are indented with four spaces.

4-Spaces fence

Add four spaces in front of your code to mark it as code block.

    s = "Code with space indent"
    print s
s = "Code with space indent"
print s

Backtick fence

You can also use three backticks to create a code block.

```
Code goes here
Code goes here
```
Code goes here
Code goes here

You can use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + C on multiple selected lines of text or in an empty line to create a code block.

Backtick fence with code highlighting

There also is some syntax highlighting with code blocks in QOwnNotes.

```bash
# I am a comment
cd Notes
```
# I am a comment
cd Notes

Currently, supported languages (and code block identifiers) are:

  • BASh scripting, bash
  • C, c
  • C++, cpp
  • C++, cxx
  • C++, c++
  • C#, c#
  • CMake, cmake
  • C#, csharp
  • CSS, css
  • Go, go
  • HTML, html
  • INI, ini
  • Java, java
  • JavaScript, javascript
  • JavaScript, js
  • JSON, json
  • Makefile, make
  • PHP, php
  • Python, py
  • Python, python
  • QML, qml
  • Rust, rust
  • Shell scripting, sh
  • SQL, sql
  • TypeScript, ts
  • TypeScript, typescript
  • V, v
  • Vex, vex
  • XML, xml
  • YAML, yml
  • YAML, yaml

Tables

Tables aren't part of the core Markdown spec, but the QOwnNotes preview supports them.

Colons can be used to align columns.

| Tables        |      Are      |  Cool |
| ------------- | :-----------: | ----: |
| col 3 is      | right-aligned | \$1600 |
| col 2 is      |   centered    |   \$12 |
| zebra stripes |   are neat    |    \$1 |

There must be at least 3 dashes separating each header cell.

The outer pipes (|) are optional, and you don't need to make the raw Markdown line up prettily. You can also use inline Markdown.

| Markdown | Less      | Pretty     |
| -------- | --------- | ---------- |
| _Still_  | `renders` | **nicely** |
| 1        | 2         | 3          |

Colons can be used to align columns.

TablesAreCool
col 3 isright-aligned$1600
col 2 iscentered$12
zebra stripesare neat$1

There must be at least 3 dashes separating each header cell.

The outer pipes (|) are optional, and you don't need to make the raw Markdown line up prettily. You can also use inline Markdown.

MarkdownLessPretty
Stillrendersnicely
123

Press Alt + Shift + T to activate a dialog that can help you to create tables. You can even import CSV files in that dialog.

Use Ctrl + Space inside a Markdown table to automatically format it.

Blockquotes

> Blockquotes are very handy in email to emulate reply text.
> This line is part of the same quote.

Quote break.

> This is a very long line that will still be quoted properly when it wraps. Oh boy let's keep writing to make sure this is long enough to actually wrap for everyone. Oh, you can _put_ **Markdown** into a blockquote.

Blockquotes are very handy in email to emulate reply text. This line is part of the same quote.

Quote break.

This is a very long line that will still be quoted properly when it wraps. Oh boy let's keep writing to make sure this is long enough to actually wrap for everyone. Oh, you can put Markdown into a blockquote.

You can tell QOwnNotes to fully highlight blockquotes or just the blockquote character in the Editor settings.

You can use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + B for marking text as blockquote.

Horizontal rule

There are three ways to get a horizontal rule: hyphens, asterisks or underscores.

Three or more...

Hyphens

---

Asterisks

***

Underscores

___

Three or more...

Hyphens


Asterisks


Underscores


Line breaks

  • You can break a paragraph into more than a single line for easier editing, they still render as a single paragraph with no breaks.
  • You can force a line break inside a paragraph by ending a line with two spaces.
  • You can make a separate paragraph by delimiting it by empty lines.

You can enter two spaces and a newline with Shift + Return.

Here's a line for us to start with.

This line is separated from the one above by two newlines, so it will be a _separate paragraph_.

This line also begins a separate paragraph, but...  
This line is only separated by two trailing spaces and a single newline, so it's a separate line in the _same paragraph_.

Here's a line for us to start with.

This line is separated from the one above by two newlines, so it will be a separate paragraph.

This line also begins a separate paragraph, but...
This line is only separated by two trailing spaces and a single newline, so it's a separate line in the same paragraph.

Trailing spaces are highlighted by default in the editor.

Comments

Comments are not shown in the preview.

[comment]: # "This comment will not appear in the preview"

<!-- HTML comments are also hidden -->

A leading html comment block in a note will also be ignored in the automatic note filename generation.

Checkbox lists

You can create simple todo lists with checkbox lists.

- [x] done
- [ ] todo
  • done
  • todo

You can check/un-check checkboxes in the preview.

Frontmatter

In QOwnNotes you can use a frontmatter (e.g. YAML) to add some extra meta information. It will not be shown in the preview and will not disturb the automatic note filename generation.

---
title: Some name
description: Some description
---

# Note headline starts here

Some text

The filename of this example note would be Note headline starts here.md.


Credit: markdown-here
License: CC-BY