Notion Markdown Guide - The Complete Cheat Sheet (2026)

Notion is one of the best tools for content production because of the range of features it offers, both in terms of design and formatting. Notion Markdown is another super useful content structuring feature offered by Notion that not just contributes to the aesthetics of content but also gives you some SEO brownie points.

This feature is useful if you have a Notion blog or even if you plan to just take notes. In other words, every time you create a new page in Notion for any purpose, you will use Markdown.

What is Markdown in Notion?

Notion Markdown is a lightweight markup language that allows users to format text and structure content using plain text-based syntax, instead of an HTML code. You can apply Markdown formatting like headers, lists, links, and more within your Notion documents.

For example, if you want to tag a phrase of text as “H1”, you need not know the HTML code for that - <h1>.

Instead, you can simply change the block type of the phrase from plain text to “Header 1”, and the font size increases to indicate the successful update of the tag — the code too gets updated in the backend. This means, even the search engines can read it.

Notion Markdown formatting options and keyboard shortcuts

Benefits of using Notion Markdown

1. Aesthetic Content

Notion Markdown enables you to create aesthetically pleasing content by allowing variations in text sizes to highlight important information. You can also take advantage of ample white space, resulting in a clean and visually appealing layout.

Furthermore, Markdown elements like images, quote blocks, dividers, etc, make the content in Notion look more aesthetic.

2. Better Optimization for Search Engines

Notion's Markdown support significantly enhances content optimization for search engines. By incorporating keywords into header tags like H1 and H2, you can improve your content's visibility to search engine crawlers, making it more discoverable, especially if you own a Notion website.

3. Ease of Creating Table of Contents

Notion simplifies the creation of a table of contents (ToC) with Markdown. The Notion ToC block automatically tracks header tags and populates them into the table of contents. This feature allows you to effortlessly display selected text phrases in your document's ToC, enhancing navigation within your content, thus reducing the bounce rates.

4. Enhanced Scrollability

Readers often skim through content to find sections of interest, and if they don't find what they're looking for quickly, they might bounce. By incorporating header tags and other Markdown elements in Notion, you can make text stand out, effectively capturing the reader's attention and encouraging them to delve deeper into your content.

Furthermore, adding images, CTA buttons, and other visual elements at the right places breaks the monotony of text and subtly inspires readers to keep scrolling through.

5. Ease of Use

Markdown in Notion, or anywhere else, is quite easy to learn and use, making it accessible to users of all levels of technical proficiency. This simplicity, combined with Notion's capabilities, ensures that you can efficiently create well-structured content without a steep learning curve.

6. Cross-Platform Compatibility

You can create content in Notion using Markdown and then seamlessly copy and paste it into other Markdown-compatible platforms, such as Google Docs, without worrying about complex formatting adjustments. This interoperability allows for a smooth writing experience and content transfer across different platforms.

7. Ease of Import and Export

As we will discuss in the next segments, Notion simplifies the process of importing and exporting Markdown documents. This user-friendly approach streamlines the process of moving content to and from Notion, ensuring an efficient workflow.

How to export Markdown content from Notion?

Exporting Markdown is a simple 3-step process.

1. Click on “Settings & Members”

Look for the “Settings & Members” option in the left pane of your Notion account, as displayed in the below image, and click on it.

2. Click on the “Settings” option in the new window

This will open up another view within the same window. Scroll down till you find the “Export content” section and click on the “Export all workspace content” button - as displayed in the below image.

3. Use the “Markdown & CSV” option

Finally, use the Markdown & CSV option from the dropdown, as displayed in the below image.

This final step will allow you to export the Markdown to your local drive.

How to import Markdown documents into Notion?

To import a markdown file into Notion:

1. Access Notion Settings

Click the ‘Settings’ option in the Notion sidebar.

2. Click on the ‘Import’ view and then select the ‘Text & Markdown’ option

3. Select the Markdown file to import from the local drive

Select your file and click on ‘Open’ to upload it to Notion.

4. Access the imported markdown file in Notion

Notion will take a few seconds to import the markdown file. Once done, you can access it in your ‘Private’ workspace.

Can you paste Markdown into Notion?

While Notion supports pasting of Markdown content that’s copied from elsewhere, you may face some issues with formatting. At times, while pasting hyperlink text or text with bold or italic formatting, Notion might introduce an extra line-break which you need to remove. You can also find difficulty in pasting large sized Markdown documents as the operation may fail.

FAQs

Can you use Markdown in Notion?

Yes, Markdown is an important feature available for Notion users. It makes structuring content easy for bloggers and for those who want to take notes.

What is rich text in Notion?

Rich text in Notion refers to the ability to format text and documents using a variety of formatting options beyond plain, unformatted text.

With rich text in Notion, you can create visually appealing and structured content. Rich text includes elements such as — Notion fonts , lists, headers, hyperlinks, code blocks, etc.

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