diff --git a/BUILD.md b/BUILD.md
index 9e5a55bd6..8a6b5695a 100644
--- a/BUILD.md
+++ b/BUILD.md
@@ -1,9 +1,11 @@
 On Linux, install the development packages for FreeType,
 Cairo, and GLib. For example, on Ubuntu / Debian, you would do:
-* sudo apt-get install gcc g++ libfreetype6-dev libglib2.0-dev libcairo2-dev
+
+    sudo apt-get install gcc g++ libfreetype6-dev libglib2.0-dev libcairo2-dev
 
 whereas on Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, and other Red Hat based systems you would do:
-* sudo yum install gcc gcc-c++ freetype-devel glib2-devel cairo-devel
+
+    sudo yum install gcc gcc-c++ freetype-devel glib2-devel cairo-devel
 
 on Windows, consider using [vcpkg](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg),
 provided by Microsoft, for building HarfBuzz and other open-source libraries
@@ -12,29 +14,37 @@ PATH and follow appveyor CI's cmake
 [build steps](https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/blob/master/appveyor.yml).
 
 on macOS, using MacPorts:
-* sudo port install freetype glib2 cairo
+
+    sudo port install freetype glib2 cairo
 
 or using Homebrew:
-* brew install freetype glib cairo
+
+    brew install freetype glib cairo
 
 If you are using a tarball, you can now proceed to running configure and make
 as with any other standard package. That should leave you with a shared
-library in src/, and a few utility programs including hb-view and hb-shape
-under util/.
+library in `src/`, and a few utility programs including `hb-view` and `hb-shape`
+under `util/`.
+
 If you are bootstraping from git, you need a few more tools before you can
-run autogen.sh for the first time. Namely, pkg-config and ragel. Again,
-on Ubuntu / Debian:
-* sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config ragel gtk-doc-tools
+run `autogen.sh` for the first time. Namely, `pkg-config` and `ragel`.
+
+Again, on Ubuntu / Debian:
+
+    sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config ragel gtk-doc-tools
 
 and on Fedora, RHEL, CentOS:
-* sudo yum install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig ragel gtk-doc
+
+    sudo yum install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig ragel gtk-doc
 
 on the Mac, using MacPorts:
-* sudo port install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig ragel gtk-doc
+
+    sudo port install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig ragel gtk-doc
 
 or using Homebrew:
-* brew install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig ragel gtk-doc
+
+    brew install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig ragel gtk-doc
 
 To build the Python bindings, you also need:
 
-* brew install pygobject3
+    brew install pygobject3