How do I center a heading on GitHub?

Use HTML: Project name . Markdown # headings cannot be centered on their own, and GitHub ignores CSS.

Why was color left out of Markdown?

Markdown separates content from presentation: the text says what something is (a heading, emphasis), and the app or stylesheet decides how it looks. That keeps the same file readable in a terminal, a website, an e-reader and a PDF.

How to Color, Center and Align Text in Markdown

By the MDConverter team · Updated October 10, 2026 · 2 min read

Quick answer

Markdown has no syntax for text color or alignment — it only describes structure. Where HTML is allowed you can use  and , but GitHub strips style attributes, so on GitHub color is only possible through LaTeX math ( $\color{red}{\text{red}}$ ) and centering through the align attribute. Chat apps such as Discord offer workarounds like ANSI-colored code blocks.

Color with HTML (renderers that allow inline styles)

VS Code's preview, MkDocs, Hugo, Jekyll, Docusaurus, Obsidian and many static sites keep inline styles:

Markdown

This is <span style="color:#dc2626">red text</span> and this is <span style="color:#2563eb">blue text</span>.

Result

This is red text and this is blue text.

Pick colors with enough contrast against both light and dark themes, or the text may become unreadable for some readers.

Color on GitHub

GitHub removes style attributes and the old  tag, so neither of the above works in READMEs. The options that do:

LaTeX math: $\color{red}{\text{Important}}$ renders red text inside GitHub's math support. It is rendered as math (slightly different font) and should be used sparingly.
Color previews in issues and PRs: a color code in backticks — #2563eb, rgb(37, 99, 235) or hsl(…) — shows a small color swatch next to it (issues, pull requests and discussions only).
Emoji and alerts: 🔴 🟢 or GitHub's > [!WARNING] alerts communicate status without color text.
Images: a badge or SVG image for colored labels.

Centering text

On GitHub and in most renderers, wrap the content in an HTML block with align="center". Leave blank lines inside the block if you want Markdown processed within it.

Markdown

<p align="center">
  <b>Centered bold text</b><br>
  A second centered line
</p>

Result

Centered bold text
A second centered line

Where CSS is allowed, <div style="text-align:center"> is the modern equivalent. Use align="right" to right-align.

Centering in tables is different: use colons in the separator row (| :---: |) to center a column. MarkdownTables.com explains all the table alignment options.

App-specific options

Obsidian: HTML spans with style work in reading view; CSS snippets and highlight (==text==) are the usual approach. See text formatting.
Discord: no color syntax, but a code block with the ansi language accepts ANSI color codes — DiscordFonts.net has a Discord colored text generator that writes them for you.
Notion: colors are set in the editor (/red, /blue commands); Notion's Markdown export drops them.
Reddit, Slack: no colored text.

Color and alignment when converting

If you need colored or centered text in a finished document, convert the Markdown first and style it in the destination: Markdown to Word gives you real Word headings and paragraphs you can recolor with styles, and Markdown to PDF offers themes. Markdown to HTML keeps inline  HTML as written.

Color and alignment by app

App	Supported	Notes
GitHub	Partly	No `style`; LaTeX `\color{}` for color, `align` attribute for centering.
GitLab	Partly	Similar to GitHub; color chips for color codes in backticks.
VS Code, MkDocs, Hugo, Jekyll	Yes	Inline HTML with `style` is kept.
Obsidian	Yes	Inline HTML styles and CSS snippets.
Discord	Partly	ANSI colors inside ```ansi code blocks only.
Slack, Reddit	No	No colored or centered text.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Problem	Fix
Colored span shows on my site but not on GitHub	GitHub strips `style`. Use LaTeX color or an image.
Markdown inside a centered `<div>` is not formatted	Leave a blank line after the opening tag and before the closing tag.
`<center>` does nothing	`<center>` is obsolete and removed by many sanitizers; use `align="center"` or CSS.

Tools for this

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions About Text color & alignment

Comprehensive answers to common technical, formatting, security, and compatibility questions.

Not with Markdown syntax. Use HTML () in renderers that allow inline styles, LaTeX \color{} in GitHub math, or style the document after converting it to Word, PDF or HTML.

Markdown Text Formatting: Bold, Italic, Strikethrough and More — Bold, italic, strikethrough, underline, highlight, superscript and subscript — with app support.
Markdown vs HTML: What Is the Difference? — How Markdown relates to HTML, what each can do, and when to mix them.
Markdown Images: Insert, Resize, Center and Caption — Insert images, set their size, center them, add captions and fix images that do not show.

Sources

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