---
title: Home
in_menu: true
sort_info: 1
---
## Overview

If you want to get started with kramdown, have a look at the [installation page](installation.html)
to see how you can install it on your system. Then look through the
[documentation](documentation.html) for finding information about how to actually use kramdown and
its parsers/converters. The [quick reference](quickref.html) provides a overview of the syntax -- if
you need a more detailed description of the superset of Markdown which kramdown supports the [syntax
page](syntax.html) is the place to go!

{tikz::
path: overview.png
img_attr: {style: 'background:transparent'}
content_processor.tikz.libraries: [mindmap, trees, arrows]
content_processor.tikz.transparent: true
content_processor.tikz.resolution: 300 100
content_processor.tikz.opts: |
  mindmap, concept color=black, text=white,
  root concept/.append style={font=\Large},
  level 1 concept/.append style={font=\Large, minimum size=2.6cm},
  level 2 concept/.append style={font=\Large},
}
\node[concept, font=\Large] (lib) {kramdown's internal representation}
  child[concept color=orange, grow=120, ->] {node[concept] (i-kramdown) {kramdown}}
  child[concept color=orange, grow=160] {node[concept] (i-html) {HTML}}
  child[concept color=orange, grow=200] {node[concept] (i-gfm) {GFM}}
  child[concept color=orange, grow=240] {node[concept] (i-markdown) {Markdown}}
  child[concept color=green!50!black, grow=60] {node[concept] (o-html) {HTML}}
  child[concept color=green!50!black, grow=20] {node[concept] (o-kramdown) {kramdown}}
  child[concept color=green!50!black, grow=-20] {
    node[concept] (o-latex) {\LaTeX}
    child[grow=0] {
      node[concept] (o-latex-pdf) {PDF}
    }
  }
  child[concept color=green!50!black, grow=-60] {node[concept] (o-pdf) {PDF}}
;
\draw [dash pattern=on 0pt off 2pt,line width=5pt,arrows=-angle 60,shorten >=15pt,shorten <=10pt,color=orange]
   (i-kramdown) edge(lib)
   (i-markdown) edge(lib)
   (i-html) edge (lib)
   (i-gfm) edge (lib);
\draw [dash pattern=on 0pt off 2pt,line width=5pt,arrows=-angle 60,shorten >=10pt,shorten <=15pt,color=green!50!black]
   (lib) edge(o-html)
   (lib) edge (o-kramdown)
   (lib) edge (o-latex)
   (lib) edge (o-pdf);
{tikz}
{: style="text-align: center"}


## Bugs, Forums, Mailing Lists

If you have found a bug, you should [report it here][bug_report]. Also, there is the [kramdown-users
google group][ml] available if you have any questions!

[bug_report]: http://github.com/gettalong/kramdown/issues
[ml]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/kramdown-users


## Thanks

kramdown would not be possible without the prior work of many other people. I want to thank everyone
involved with making Markdown such a nice markup language and especially the developers of other
Markdown implementations because kramdown borrowed many ideas from existing packages.


## Author

* Thomas Leitner
* e-Mail: <mailto:t_leitner@gmx.at>

[PHP Markdown Extra]: http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/
[Maruku]: http://maruku.rubyforge.org
[BlueFeather]: http://ruby.morphball.net/bluefeather/index_en.html

--- intro
<div markdown="1" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/SoftwareApplication">
<meta itemprop="applicationCategory" content="Markdown library, Markdown converter" />
<meta itemprop="operatingSystem" content="Linux, Windows, Mac OS X" />
<div itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
<meta itemprop="name" content="Thomas Leitner" />
<meta itemprop="email" content="t_leitner@gmx.at" />
</div>

**kramdown**{:itemprop="name"} (sic, not Kramdown or KramDown, just kramdown) is a *free*
[MIT](https://github.com/gettalong/kramdown/blob/master/COPYING){:itemprop="license"}-licensed
[Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org) library for parsing and converting a superset of Markdown. It is
completely written in Ruby, supports standard Markdown (with some minor modifications) and various
extensions that have been made popular by the [PHP Markdown Extra] package and [Maruku].
{:itemprop="description"}

It is probably the fastest pure-Ruby Markdown converter available (September 2014), being about 3x
faster than [Maruku] and about 4.5x faster than [BlueFeather].

Version **1.15.0**{:itemprop="softwareVersion"} released on
**2017-09-08**{:itemprop="datePublished"}, [more news](news.html)
{: style="text-align: center; font-size: 80%"}

</div>

<div id="call-to-arms">
Support kramdown development and <a href="https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=4908963" class="patreon">become a patron</a>!
</div>


[PHP Markdown Extra]: http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/
[Maruku]: http://maruku.rubyforge.org
[BlueFeather]: http://ruby.morphball.net/bluefeather/index_en.html
