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The MARKDOWN (MD) format is a plain text format that uses ordinary punctuation to mean formatting. Both extensions describe the same thing — .md is the common one, .markdown the spelled-out variant — and any editor that opens one opens the other. A line beginning with # is a heading, text wrapped in asterisks is emphasised, and a hyphen at the start of a line makes a bullet.
It was written in 2004 by John Gruber, with Aaron Swartz, as a way to write for the web without writing HTML. Because the original description left room for interpretation, several flavours grew up around it. CommonMark set out to pin the ambiguities down, and GitHub Flavored Markdown added tables, task lists and fenced code blocks on top of it. A file written for one flavour usually renders correctly in another.
Its reach comes from that simplicity. Every README on GitHub is Markdown, as are most software documentation sites, note-taking applications such as Obsidian and Notion, and the static site generators behind a large share of personal blogs. The file is only text, so it survives in version control, shows a readable diff, and can be edited anywhere.
What it does not carry is page layout — no margins, no fonts, no page breaks. That is exactly why converting it matters: as PDF or DOCX the same words arrive as a formatted document, ready to print, send or hand to somebody who has never heard of Markdown.