Markdown is a simple way to add style, lists, links, and other formatting to plain text. Apps like Bear that support Markdown¹ can display this formatting while still working with your notes as plain text. This duality, of sorts, has a number of advantages—your notes are future-proof, avoid app and platform lock-in, can be converted and shared almost anywhere, are portable to virtually any other app that understands text, and more.

You can format notes in Bear in two ways: with the built-in formatting tools, or by typing Markdown yourself. Both work the same way on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and you can mix them freely.

Format notes with Bear’s Markdown tools

An easy way to get started with Markdown in Bear notes is to use the built-in formatting tools. Click or tap the BI~U~ button in the top right of any Bear note to open the Formatting Bar (Mac) or Formatting Keyboard (iPhone and iPad). Like many other writing apps, click or tap any of those tools to transform your text, create tables, add photos, insert attachments, and more.

On Mac

On iPhone and iPad

Some buttons have a small arrow in their corner. Long-press them to see more options, like choosing between heading levels.

Markdown cheat sheet

Markdown formatting is also easy to type on your own, which is great for people who prefer to keep their hands on the keyboard. For most text styles, wrap words with the characters below. The shortcuts are for Bear on Mac, and most of them also work on iPhone and iPad with a hardware keyboard.

Style	Type this	Mac shortcut
Heading 1–6	# Heading (use ## to ###### for levels 2–6)	⌘1 to ⌘6
Bold	**Bold**	⌘B
Italics	_Italics_	⌘I
Underline	~Underline~	⌘U
Strikethrough	~~Strikethrough~~	⇧⌘U
Highlighter	==Highlighter==	⇧⌘M
Inline code	`Code`	⌥⌘C
Link	[title of your link](https://bear.app)	⌘K
Wiki link to another note	[[Note title]]	⌘D

Other types of Markdown style go at the start of a line:

Style	Type this	Mac shortcut
Bulleted list	* or - and a space	⌘L
Numbered list	1. and a space	⇧⌘L
Todo	- [ ] and a space	⌘T
Quote	> and a space	⇧⌘T
Line separator	---	⌥⌘S
Code block	``` on its own line above and below your code	^⌘C
Footnote	[^1] in your text, then [^1]: Footnote text at the bottom of the note	⇧⌘E

See the full list of Mac keyboard shortcuts and iPhone and iPad keyboard shortcuts for more.

Nested Markdown styles in Bear

Bear supports using multiple text styles together, even in headings. For example, bold text can also be underlined and highlighted, or tags can be italicized and used in headings.

To add multiple styles to selected text, use the Formatting Bar or press the keyboard shortcuts one after the other. For example, press ⌘B and then ⌘U to make text both bold and underlined. To learn Bear’s markup shortcuts, check the Format menu on Mac. On iPad with a keyboard, hold the Command key to see the available shortcuts.

How to remove a style from text with multiple styles

Place the cursor anywhere in the text, then use the Formatting Bar or keyboard shortcut for the style you want to remove. You can also manually remove the Markdown characters surrounding the text, but the other methods are usually faster.

Tips & things to know

• You can choose to hide or show Markdown style characters by toggling the Hide Markdown option in Bear’s Settings > General preferences panel
• Nested styles are supported by Markdown, but not all Markdown-friendly apps support nested styles. Exported Bear notes with nested styles might look different in other apps

Learn more

Bear builds on Markdown with more ways to format your notes:

• Tables
• Footnotes
• Callouts
• Code block syntax highlighting
• Math formulas
• Mermaid diagrams
• Linking notes together