The Markdown language allows you to compose a message in plain text while using specific symbols and combinations of symbols to indicate formatting, such as italics, bold, and underline. The advantage of using Markdown is that readers who receive your message in plain text can interpret your intended formatting, while readers with email clients who read Markdown will see your message with your intended formatting without seeing the special characters. With Markdown, you don't have to rely on a toolbar, formatting buttons, or memorized keyboard shortcuts to apply text formatting — you just type them in.

For example, parts of Markdown, such as bold and italic text, can be interpreted in any email program.

A web address: Enclose the URL with angle brackets, also known as greater-than and less-than symbols. For example:

This will be displayed as http://example.com.