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[Antmf]

Say I want to dig down a level do I start with down stairs or can I use up/downstairs? And when I get to second level and want to go down is it down again or can I start using the up/down? Little confused on this. Thank you.

[PatrikLundell]

To dig a stair on the level below the dorf you have to have a down staircase component on the level above. This means either a down staircase or an up/down one will work. Thus, in most cases Up/Down staircases will do the trick. HOWEVER, be aware there is a bug/feature that allows anything in the 8 tiles surrounding the revealed tile below an up/down staircase (and probably a down only one as well) to enter the staircase diagonally upwards by swimming, flying, and, probably, climbing. This happens despite the fact that these 8 tiles are not revealed, and there is no announcement of a feature (such as a cavern or the magma sea) being found. Having your Up/Down staircase digging silently broken off because SMR is encountered? Check for hot rock at the bottom of the staircase, or you may get surprise visits from magma crabs.

[Bumber]

You can start with up/down stairs if you're carving them into a solid tile, otherwise you need to construct them with material. If you're not planning to access the floor above, it is pointless but not harmful to use an up/down stair. Down stairs can be carved into open floors, which is more ideal for starting a staircase outside or on the cavern floor (and can also be used to drain a lake from below.) Don't use down for the second level. If you do, there's no connection to the level above, and it'll be unusable for reaching that level.

Simply put, an up stair is a stair up to (but not through) the ceiling, a down stair is a stair through the floor (breaching the ceiling of the tile below), and an up/down stair is both in the same tile.

[bmxbumpkin]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Stairs

The image on this wiki page really helped me to understand stairs, and channeling/mining.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/File:DF_Terraform_2.PNG

[greycat]

Let's take the simplest case first: you have 7 dwarves standing outdoors, on some flat ground.  There are no cliffs or anything.  You'd like to dig down into the dirt, and then possibly into the stone below it.

Designate (for digging) a down staircase at ground level.  Immediately below that, designate (for digging) an up/down staircase.  The downstairs on the top (ground) level will pair up automatically with the up part of the up/down staircase in the tile below it.  The down part of the up/down staircase will poke down into the second level below ground, revealing the terrain, but won't be usable until you dig a second up/down staircase in that tile.  And so on, as far down as you care to go, until you hit a cavern, or magma, or semi-molten rock.

[schlake]

A down on the surface, and up/down each level below that.

I've taken to making ramps though.  I channel a 3 wide block, then drop down one level and channel an adjacent 3 wide block, then down again and another channel, etc.

[DMT]

on the surface, press j (down stairs) then select a block, then press either u (up stairs) or i (up/down stairs) then place it one block under where you placed the down stairs