Jira Markdown notes

Straight answers about Markdown in Jira: what Cloud actually supports, what it does not, and the syntax that works today.

• Does Jira Cloud support Markdown? The precise answerJira Cloud converts some Markdown as you type, but it does not store Markdown and cannot open a Markdown document. Here is exactly where the line falls.
• Pasting Markdown into Jira: why it lands as plain textWhy a block of Markdown pasted into a Jira issue stays as literal asterisks and hashes, and the three ways to get formatted content instead.
• Jira Markdown not working: a checklistWork out in a minute which of the four common causes is behind Markdown not converting in Jira: paste versus typing, Cloud versus Data Center, the wrong field, or genuinely unsupported syntax.
• Markdown tables in Jira: what converts and what does notPipe-syntax tables do not autoformat in Jira Cloud. How to build a table that works, why pasted tables collapse, and the wiki markup equivalent for Data Center.
• Code blocks in Jira: fences, languages, and inline codeHow fenced code blocks and inline code behave in Jira Cloud, how to set the language, and the wiki markup equivalents on Data Center.
• Jira Markdown and wiki markup cheat sheetOne page covering both: the Markdown patterns Jira Cloud converts as you type, and the wiki markup syntax used by Server and Data Center.
• Converting Markdown for Jira: which target you actually needMarkdown-to-Jira converters target wiki markup, which Jira Cloud no longer accepts. How to tell which conversion you need and what to do for Cloud.