The following is a list of

document markup language Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the documen ...

s. You may also find the

List of markup languages This is a list of markup languages. This page directly lists markup languages that have not yet been assigned to more specific categories. However, many specific markup language are instead listed only under the narrower lists referenced below. Bu ...

of interest.

Well-known document markup languages

HyperText Markup Language The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript ...

(HTML) – the original markup language that was defined as a part of implementing

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

, an ad hoc defined language inspired by the meta format

SGML The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML; ISO 8879:1986) is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents. ISO 8879 Annex A.1 states that generalized markup is "based on two postulates": * Declarative: Markup should des ...

and which inspired many other markup languages. *

Keyhole Markup Language Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with Google Earth, which was originally named Ke ...

(KML/KMZ) - the XML-based markup language used for exchanging geographic information for use with

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

. *

Markdown Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is appealing to human readers in its source code form. Markdown is ...

- simple plaintext markup popular as language of blog/cms posts and comments, multiple implementations. *

Mathematical Markup Language Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web ...

(MathML) *

Scalable Vector Graphics Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sinc ...

(SVG) *

TeX Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

– a format for describing complex type and page layout often used for mathematics, technical, and academic publications. *

Wiki markup A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

– used in Wikipedia,

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki ...

and other Wiki installations. * Extensible 3D (X3D) *

Extensible HyperText Markup Language Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior t ...

(XHTML): HTML reformulated in XML syntax. **

XHTML Basic XHTML Basic is an XML-based structured markup language primarily used for simple (mainly ''handheld'') user agents, typically mobile devices. XHTML Basic is a subset of XHTML 1.1, defined using XHTML Modularization including a reduced set of mod ...

– a subset of XHTML for simple (typically mobile, handheld) devices. It is meant to replace WML, and C-HTML. **

XHTML Mobile Profile XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP) is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices. It is an XHTML document type defined by the Open Mobile Alliance. XHTML-MP is derived fr ...

(XHTML MP) – a standard designed for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices.

Metalanguages

Standard Generalized Markup Language The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML; ISO 8879:1986) is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents. ISO 8879 Annex A.1 states that generalized markup is "based on two postulates": * Declarative: Markup should des ...

(SGML) – a standard pattern for markup languages to which

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

and

DocBook DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software, but it can be used for any other sort of documentation. As a semantic languag ...

adhere. *

Extensible Markup Language Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

(XML) – a newer standard pattern for markup languages; a restricted form of

that is intended to be compatible with it.

Lesser-known document markup languages

(including some

lightweight markup language A lightweight markup language (LML), also termed a simple or humane markup language, is a markup language with simple, unobtrusive syntax. It is designed to be easy to write using any generic text editor and easy to read in its raw form. Lightwei ...

s) * ABC notation - markup language for music scores in pure text. * Amigaguide – The

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

hypertext documentation format, including multimedia support. *

AsciiDoc AsciiDoc is a human-readable document format, semantically equivalent to DocBook XML, but using plain-text mark-up conventions. AsciiDoc documents can be created using any text editor and read “as-is”, or rendered to HTML or any other for ...

- plaintext markup language similar to Markdown *

AsciiDoctor AsciiDoc is a human-readable document format, semantically equivalent to DocBook XML, but using plain-text mark-up conventions. AsciiDoc documents can be created using any text editor and read “as-is”, or rendered to HTML or any other for ...

- plaintext markup language (extending AsciiDoc
AsciiDoctor
*

Chemical Markup Language Chemical Markup Language (ChemML or CML) is an approach to managing molecular information using tools such as XML and Java. It was the first domain specific implementation based strictly on XML, first based on a DTD and later on an XML Schema, t ...

(CML) * Compact HyperText Markup Language (C-HTML) – used for some mobile phones. *

Computable Document Format Computable Document Format (CDF) is an electronic document format designed to allow authoring dynamically generated, interactive content. CDF was created by Wolfram Research, and CDF files can be created using Mathematica. As of 2021, the Wolfram ...

- used for interactive technical documents. *

ConTeXt Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...

– a modular, structured formatting language based on TeX. *

Darwin Information Typing Architecture The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines a set of document types for authoring and organizing topic-oriented information, as well as a set of mechanisms for combining, extending, and constraining document types. It i ...

(DITA) - modular open free format for technical and specialized documents. *

– format for technical (but not only) manuals and documentation. *

eLML The eLesson Markup Language (eLML) is an open source XML framework for creating electronic lessons. It is a "spin-off" from the GITTA project, a Swiss GIS eLearning project, and was launched in spring 2004. The eLML project is hosted at Source ...

– eLesson Markup Language: create eLearning content *

Encoded Archival Description Encoded Archival Description (EAD) is a standard for encoding descriptive information regarding archival records.Pitti, D (2012). "Encoded Archival Description (EAD)." In Bates, Marcia J., (ed.) ''Understanding Information Retrieval Systems: Managem ...

(EAD) *

Enriched text Enrichment may refer to: * Behavioral enrichment, the practice of providing animals under managed care with stimuli such as natural and artificial objects * Data enrichment, appending or enhancing data with relevant context from other sources, se ...

– for formatting e-mail text. * GML **

Generalized Markup Language Generalized Markup Language (GML) is a set of macros that implement intent-based (procedural) markup tags for the IBM text formatter, SCRIPT. SCRIPT/VS is the main component of IBM's Document Composition Facility (DCF). A ''starter set'' of ...

(GML) **

Geography Markup Language The Geography Markup Language (GML) is the XML grammar defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to express geographical features. GML serves as a modeling language for geographic systems as well as an open interchange format for geographic ...

(GML) ** Gesture Markup Language (GML) ** Graffiti Markup Language (GML) *

GNU TeXmacs GNU TeXmacs is a scientific word processor and typesetting component of the GNU Project. It originated as GNU Emacs with TeX functionalities, though it shares no code with those programs, while using TeX fonts. It is written and maintained by Jori ...

format – used by the GNU TeXmacs document preparation system * Guide Markup Language (GuideML) – used by the ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' site. *

Handheld Device Markup Language The Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) is a markup language intended for display on handheld computers, information appliances, smartphones, etc.. It is similar to HTML, but for wireless and handheld devices with small displays, like PDA, m ...

(HDML) – designed for smartphones and handheld computers. * Help Markup Language (HelpML) * Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language (HyTime) * HyperTeX – for including hyperlinks in TeX (and LaTeX) documents. *

Information Presentation Facility Information Presentation Facility (IPF) is a system for presenting online help and hypertext on IBM OS/2 systems. IPF also refers to the markup language that is used to create IPF content. The IPF language has its origins in BookMaster and Ge ...

(IPF) – is a system for presenting online help and hypertext on IBM

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

systems. It is also the default help file format used by the cross-platform fpGUI Toolkit project. * JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite) – a NISO standard of XML used to describe and publish STEM (scientific/technical/engineering/medical) scholarly journal articles * Koppla *

LilyPond LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand. LilyPond is cross-pl ...

– a system for music notation. * LinuxDoc – used by the Linux Documentation Project. * Lout – a document formatting functional programming language, similar in style to LaTeX. *

Maker Interchange Format Adobe FrameMaker is a document processor designed for writing and editing large or complex documents, including structured documents. It was originally developed by Frame Technology Corporation, which was bought by Adobe. Overview FrameMaker ...

(MIF) *

Microsoft Assistance Markup Language Microsoft Assistance Markup Language (Microsoft AML, generally referred to as MAML) is an XML-based markup language developed by the Microsoft User Assistance Platform team to provide user assistance ("online help") for the Microsoft Windows Vis ...

(MAML) *

Music Encoding Initiative The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) is an open-source effort to create a system for representation of musical documents in a machine-readable structure. MEI closely mirrors work done by text scholars in the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and while t ...

(MEI) * Music Extensible Markup Language (MusicXML) * Open Mathematical Documents (OMDoc) *

OpenMath OpenMath is the name of a markup language for specifying the meaning of mathematical formulae. Among other things, it can be used to complement MathML, a standard which mainly focuses on the presentation of formulae, with information about their sem ...

– a markup language for mathematical formulae which can complement MathML. * Parameter Value Language, stores mission data in NASA's Planetary Database System *

Plain Old Documentation Plain Old Documentation (pod) is a lightweight markup language used to document the Perl programming language as well as Perl modules and programs. Design Pod is designed to be a simple, clean language with just enough syntax to be useful. It pur ...

(POD) – a simple, platform-independent documentation tool for

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...

.
Pillar
- a markup syntax and associated tools to write and generate documentation written in

Pharo Pharo is an open source, cross-platform implementation of the classic Smalltalk-80 programming language and runtime. It's based on the OpenSmalltalk virtual machine called Cog (VM), which evaluates a dynamic, reflective, and object-orient ...

* PUB (markup language), an early scriptable

markup language Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...

Remote Telescope Markup Language The Remote Telescope Markup Language (RTML) is an XML dialect for controlling remote and/or robotic telescopes. It is used to describe various telescope parameters (such as coordinates and exposure time) to facilitate observation of selected target ...

(RTML) *

reStructuredText reStructuredText (RST, ReST, or reST) is a file format for textual data used primarily in the Python programming language community for technical documentation. It is part of the Docutils project of the Python Doc-SIG (Documentation Special Inte ...

(reSt) - plaintext platform-independent markup used as

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

libraries documentation tool, multiple output formats (HTML, LaTeX, ODT, EPUB, ...) * Retail Template Markup Language (RTML) – e-commerce language which is based on

Lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...

. *

Revisable-Form Text Document Content Architecture, or DCA for short, is a standard developed by IBM for text documents in the early 1980s. DCA was used on mainframe and IBM i systems, and formed the basis of DisplayWrite's file format. DCA was later extended as M ...

(RFT) – part of IBM's

Document Content Architecture Document Content Architecture, or DCA for short, is a standard developed by IBM for text documents in the early 1980s. DCA was used on mainframe and IBM i systems, and formed the basis of DisplayWrite's file format. DCA was later extended as MO ...

to allow transfer of formatted documents to other systems. *

S1000D S1000D is an international specification for the procurement and production of technical publications. It is an XML specification for preparing, managing, and publishing technical information for a product. It was initially developed by the AeroSpa ...

– international specification for technical documentation related to commercial or military; aerospace, sea or land; vehicles or equipment.
Scribble
- Markup language based on

Racket (programming language) Racket is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language and a multi-platform distribution that includes the Racket language, compiler, large standard library, IDE, development tools, and a set of additional languages including Typed Ra ...

Scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

– Brian Reid's seminal markup language *

Script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

– Early IBM markup language on which GML is built. * Semantic, Extensible, Computational, Styled, Tagged markup language (SECST) - A more expressive and semantic alternative to Markdown that also transpiles to HTML.
SiSU
Structured Information, Serialized Units – generalized Markup language with several output formats * SKiCal – a machine-readable format for the interchange of enhanced yellow-page directory listings. * Skriv – lightweight markup language. *

Texinfo Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line and printed form (creating filetypes as , , , etc., and its own hypertext format, ) with a single source file. It is implemented by a computer program released as fr ...

– GNU documentation format. *

Text Encoding Initiative The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities, operating continuously since the 1980s. The community currently runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and main ...

(TEI) – Guidelines for text encoding in the humanities, social sciences and linguistics. *

Textile (markup language) Textile is a lightweight markup language that uses a text formatting syntax to convert plain text into structured HTML markup. Textile is used for writing articles, forum posts, readme documentation, and any other type of written content publishe ...

– Plaintext XHTML web text. * Time Management Markup Language(TMML) – For Time Management and rarely used for mobile alarm in 2008 *

troff troff (), short for "typesetter roff", is the major component of a document processing system developed by Bell Labs for the Unix operating system. troff and the related nroff were both developed from the original roff. While nroff was inten ...

(typesetter runoff), groff (GNU runoff) *

UDO (markup language) UDO is a lightweight markup language. The acronym stands for Universal Document Output. Much like the more recent reStructuredText, it is well-suited for writing documentation. A corresponding free software program called ''udo'' can be used to co ...

, a lightweight markup language *

Wireless Markup Language Wireless Markup Language (WML), based on XML, is a now-obsolete markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyp ...

(WML), Wireless TV Markup Language (WTVML) *

Extensible Application Markup Language Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language that Microsoft developed for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively ...

(XAML) XML based user interface markup language * Xupl – a C-style equivalent to XML.

Office document markup languages

Compound Document Format Compound Document Format (CDF) is a set of W3C candidate standards describing electronic compound document file formats that contains multiple formats, such as SVG, XHTML, SMIL and XForms. The core standards are the Web Integration Compound D ...

Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version a ...

(OOXML) – open standard format for office documents: **

SpreadsheetML SpreadsheetML is the XML schema for Microsoft Office Excel 2003. The Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas are included in the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, a legal statement concerning unrestricted use of Microsoft intellectual property. See ...

– spreadsheet language, part of Office Open XML ** PresentationML – presentations language, part of Office Open XML ** WordprocessingML – wordprocessing language, part of Office Open XML ** Microsoft Office 2003 XML formats – predecessor of Office Open XML *

OpenDocument The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...

(ODF) – open standard format for office documents **

OpenOffice.org XML OpenOffice.org XML is an open XML-based file format developed as an open community effort by Sun Microsystems in 2000–2002. The open-source software application suite OpenOffice.org 1.x and StarOffice 6 and 7 used the format as their native an ...

– predecessor of OpenDocument * ReportML – Report format language originating from

Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools (not to be confused with the old Microsoft Access w ...

. (not a part of Office Open XML (yet)) *

Rich Text Format ) As an example, the following RTF code would be rendered as follows: This is some bold text. Character encoding A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. Th ...

(RTF) – Microsoft format for exchanging documents with other vendors' applications. (It is not really a markup language, as it was never meant for intuitive and easy typing.) * Uniform Office Format (UOF) – open format for office documents, being harmonised with OpenDocument.

References

{{Document markup languages * Document markup languages

Well-known document markup languages

Metalanguages

Lesser-known document markup languages

Office document markup languages

See also

References