# Introduction

This page gives you a high-level understanding of what multimark does, why it exists, and what you can accomplish with it.


# What Is Multimark?

Multimark is a Python package that provides bindings to [cmark-gfm](https://github.com/github/cmark-gfm), GitHub's fork of the CommonMark reference parser. It gives you fast, spec-compliant Markdown parsing and rendering in five output formats: HTML, LaTeX, groff man pages, XML, and normalized CommonMark.

The C library is vendored and compiled at install time via CFFI, so there are no system dependencies to manage. You get a single `pip install` and immediate access to the same Markdown engine that powers GitHub.


# Why Use Multimark?

Most Python Markdown libraries are written in pure Python, which means they trade performance for portability. Multimark takes a different approach: it wraps a battle-tested C library that processes millions of documents daily on GitHub. This gives you parsing speeds that are orders of magnitude faster than pure-Python alternatives, with guaranteed spec compliance.

Beyond speed, multimark supports the full set of GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extensions: tables, strikethrough, autolinks, tag filtering, and task lists. These are the same extensions that GitHub uses when rendering README files, issues, and pull requests.


# Output Formats at a Glance

Multimark renders parsed Markdown into five distinct formats, each suited to different use cases.

<span class="gd-details-chevron" aria-hidden="true"></span><img src="data:image/svg+xml;base64,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" class="gd-details-icon" />Available formats


| Format | Function | Use Case |
|----|----|----|
| HTML | [markdown_to_html()](../reference/markdown_to_html.md#multimark.markdown_to_html) | Web pages, documentation sites, email |
| LaTeX | [markdown_to_latex()](../reference/markdown_to_latex.md#multimark.markdown_to_latex) | Academic papers, PDF generation |
| Man page | [markdown_to_man()](../reference/markdown_to_man.md#multimark.markdown_to_man) | Unix manual pages |
| XML | [markdown_to_xml()](../reference/markdown_to_xml.md#multimark.markdown_to_xml) | AST inspection, toolchain integration |
| CommonMark | [markdown_to_commonmark()](../reference/markdown_to_commonmark.md#multimark.markdown_to_commonmark) | Normalization, round-trip formatting |


All renderers share the same parser and accept the same set of options, so switching between output formats requires changing only the function name.


# A Quick Taste

Here is the simplest possible use of multimark: converting a Markdown string to HTML.


``` python
from multimark import markdown_to_html

markdown_to_html("Hello, **world**!")
```


    '<p>Hello, <strong>world</strong>!</p>\n'


The function returns the rendered output as a Python string. Every renderer works this way: pass in Markdown text, get back the rendered result.


# Next Steps

The pages that follow will walk you through installation, a more thorough quickstart, and then progressively deeper topics. If you prefer to jump straight to the API reference, each function is fully documented with executable examples in the [Reference](../reference/index.md) section.