Discord Fonts and Text Formatting: Strikethrough, Bold, Underline and Italics
The most popular desktop messengers from a few years ago are now history; G Talk, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger are all gone. That’s not to say that desktop messengers are now extinct. There are still plenty of messaging apps that you can use on your desktop, and these apps have mobile counterparts that allow you to carry on a conversation from a mobile device when you leave your desktop. What we have now are desktop messaging apps that are popular with certain types of users.
Discord Fonts
Discord is popular in the gaming community. It’s used in work-place settings as well but its reputation pits it as the go-to messaging platform for gamers. That said, the messaging app doesn’t limit itself in any way and has features that allow it to compete with other messaging apps like Slack, Telegram, and even Skype.
It’s available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. There’s also an app for iOS and Android. The messaging app supports group messaging, and audio and video calls, as well as basic text messaging. It allows users to join servers which is what makes it popular among gamers and anyone looking for casual communities to connect with. It also has support for Markdown that allows users to stylize text sent over a message.
Discord Text Formatting
Text sent over a Discord channel can be stylized so that it appears bold, in italics, underlined, or struckthrough. It also supports code blocks. To keep things simple, the text is stylized using Markdown instead of giving users a formatting toolbar.
Discord Bold, Italics, Bold Italics, Underline, and Strikethrough
In order to format text in Discord, you need to surround the text with the right characters.
- Open Discord and select a friend or a channel to send a message over.
- Enter the message you want to enter but don’t send it.
- Use the table below and surround the text with the characters needed to stylize it.
- Tap Enter.
| Style | Syntax |
|---|---|
| Bold | ** |
| Italics | * |
| Bold Italics | *** |
| Underline | __ |
| Bold Italics Underlined | __*** |
| Strikethrough | ~~ |
| Bold, Italics, Underline, and Strikethrough | __~~*** |
Examples
Copy and paste the following examples in Discord to see them in action. Make sure you include the special characters when copying and pasting the text.
Bold: Use two asterisks on both sides of the text.
**This message will appear bold in Discord**
Italics: Use a single asterisk or a single underscore on both sides of the text.
*This message will appear in italics* _This message will also appear in italics_
Bold Italics: Use three asterisks on both ends of the text.
***This text will be bold, and in italics***
Underline: Use two underscores on both ends of the text.
__This text will be underlined__
Bold, Italics, and Underline: Use two underscores and three asterisks on both ends of text to apply all three styles to it.
__***This text will be bold, in italics, and it will be underlined***__
Strikethrough: Add two tilde characters to both ends of the text. The tilde character can normally be entered from the key directly above the Tab key on a QWERTY keyboard by holding down Shift.
~~This text will appear struckthrough~~
Bold, Italics, Underline, and Strikethrough: Use two underscores, two tildes, and three asterisks around the text to apply all four styles.
__~~***This text will be bold, in italics, underlined, and struckthrough***~~__
Codeblocks
To send a code block over Discord, you need to use the backtick character. This character is entered from the key above the Tab key on a normal QWERTY keyboard.
- For a single line of code, use one backtick on both ends of the code.
- For code blocks that have multiple lines of code, use three backticks on both ends of code.
Example
Single line of code
`#!/bin/bash`
Multiple lines of code
```#!/bin/bash echo "Stay Home"```
Colored text
You can apply color to the text that is sent but it’s slightly more complicated to add color to do since the colors all use different commands that you will have to remember. The syntax will be the same in most cases.
- Open Discord and click inside the text input field for a friend or channel
- Add three backticks at the very start of your message.
- Use the table below to pick the command for the color you want to use, and add it after the three backticks.
- Enter the message you want to send and use the correct text marker (see table).
- Add three backticks to the end of the message.
- Send the message.
| Color | Command | Text marker |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | ini | Enclose text in square brackets [] |
| Cyan | json | Enclose text in double quote marks “” |
| Lime green | diff | Add a plus + at the start of text |
| Orange | css | Enclose text in square brackets [] |
| Red | diff | Add a hyphen – at the start of text |
| Yellow | fix | None |
Example
Blue
```ini [This text will be blue] ```
Cyan
```json "This text will be cyan" ```
Lime green
```diff +This text will be lime green ```
Orange
```css [This text will be orange] ```
Red
```diff -This text will be red ```
Yellow
```fix This text will be yellow ```
Highlight text
To highlight text sent over Discord;
- Open Discord and click inside a text input field.
- Enter three backticks and add tex after it.
- Move to the next line, and add a dollar sign.
- Enter your message after the dollar sign.
- Move to the next line, and add three backticks.
- Tap Enter to send the message.
Example
```tex $This will be highlighted ```
Conclusion
Using Markdown to format text in Discord isn’t difficult. You might need to reference the syntax when you first start formatting it but you’ll learn it quickly. Coloring text is a bit trickier since each color has a different command and marker. Still, many users prefer this method for formatting text instead of utilizing regular buttons that you’ll find in more sophisticated text input fields. Outside the colors listed in this post, Discord does not support any other colors.
