Discord Text Formatting Cheat Sheet: Bold, Italic, Code and More

How to use it

1. Type your text in the box above. Use several lines if you want to try quotes and lists.
2. Find the style you want in the list. The raw characters are shown, ready to paste.
3. Press Copy on that row and paste it into a message. Discord applies the style when you send.

Quick reference

Rules that trip people up

• Headers, quotes, lists and subtext must start a line. There must be a space after the symbol.
• Styles can combine. __**bold underline**__ works. Put the symbols in matching pairs, closing in reverse order.
• Code blocks stop formatting. Text inside backticks shows the symbols as they are, which is how you show markdown itself.
• Show a symbol without styling. Put a backslash before it, like \*not italic\*.

Some places show less formatting than a normal chat message. Embed titles, nicknames, channel names and status text each support different pieces. Test in the place you need it.

Code blocks

Three backticks before and after a block keep the spacing and, if you name a language on the first line (like js), add color. They are good for logs, rules in a list and ASCII art. The ASCII art generator builds them for you.

For server staff

Good formatting makes rules, announcements and tickets easier to scan. Headers and lists suit a rules channel, and subtext is handy for small notes. Build the full post with the embed builder docs or hide answers with the spoiler text generator. Related tools: small text generator and hyperlink generator.

Where formatting does not work

Markdown works in normal messages. It may not in channel names, role names, nicknames or some bot fields. Embeds support much of it in descriptions and field values but not always in titles. When something does not render, try it in a plain message first to find out whether the symbols or the place is the problem.