How to Format Text with Markdown on WhatsApp, Discord & Slack

Here's the good news up front: on WhatsApp, Discord, Slack and Telegram, you do not need any generator, extension, or Unicode trick to bold or italicize. These apps parse real markdown. You type a couple of symbols around your text, hit send, and the app renders the style for you. That's the opposite of Instagram, LinkedIn or X, where the post box is plain text with no markdown — there, swapping letters for Unicode look-alikes is the only path.

So this post is short on workarounds and long on exact syntax. The catch is that each app uses slightly different symbols, and getting one wrong means your message ships with stray asterisks. Below is the precise markup for each, described symbol by symbol.

What "markdown" actually means in a chat app

Markdown is a shorthand: you wrap text in punctuation, and the app converts it to a visual style. *like this* becomes bold (or italic, depending on the app). The text stays real, editable, copy-pasteable text — nothing is swapped for a special character. That matters, because it means screen readers, search, and copy-paste all behave normally. This is genuinely different from Unicode "fonts," which replace each letter with a math-alphabet symbol that often gets mangled by assistive tech.

One universal rule: the symbols sit directly against the text with no inner spaces. *bold* works; * bold * does not.

WhatsApp markdown syntax

WhatsApp keeps it minimal. Four styles, all single symbols:

So a single asterisk on each side gives bold, a single underscore gives italic, a single tilde gives strikethrough, and three backticks on each side give a monospace (fixed-width) block. WhatsApp also added bulleted lists, numbered lists, and block quotes in recent versions, but the four above are the ones you'll reach for daily. For a deeper look at the tilde trick, see our strikethrough on WhatsApp guide.

Discord markdown syntax

Discord has the richest markdown of the bunch — it's built for people who like to format. Note the difference from WhatsApp: here a single asterisk is italic and double asterisks are bold.

To spell it out: double asterisks for bold, a single asterisk for italic, double underscores for underline, double tildes for strikethrough, one backtick for inline code, three backticks for a multi-line code block, double pipes for a hidden spoiler, and a greater-than sign at the start of the line for a block quote. You can stack them too — ***bold italic*** works. If you want the full breakdown of fixed-width text on Discord, see our monospace text on Discord guide.

Slack markdown syntax

Slack uses single symbols like WhatsApp, but with its own quirks. Important context: Slack switched its message box to a WYSIWYG composer with a formatting toolbar a while back. The markup shortcuts still apply — type the symbols and Slack converts them as you go (you can toggle the toolbar off in Preferences if you'd rather type raw markup).

A single asterisk each side is bold, a single underscore is italic, a single tilde is strikethrough, one backtick is inline code, three backticks make a code block, and a leading greater-than makes a quote. Notice Slack and WhatsApp agree that one asterisk is bold — the opposite of Discord. That mismatch is the single most common formatting mistake when people switch apps.

Telegram, briefly

Telegram supports markdown too. The simplest, most reliable route is to highlight your text, and Telegram pops up a formatting menu (bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, monospace, and more). On Telegram Desktop you can also type the symbols directly — double asterisks for bold and double underscores for italic — and they format when you hit send. For the menu-driven approach and the full symbol list, see our Telegram formatter page.

Quick cross-app comparison

Memorize one rule and the rest follows: WhatsApp and Slack bold with a single asterisk; Discord and Telegram bold with double.

So when does a formatter still help?

If these four apps have native markdown, why would you ever touch a Unicode generator? Two honest cases.

Cross-posting one styled line to apps that lack markdown. Say you write a launch announcement and want the same bold headline in your WhatsApp status and your Instagram caption and your LinkedIn post. WhatsApp renders *bold* natively; Instagram and LinkedIn don't support markdown at all. To get a styled look that survives the paste into those plain-text boxes, you'd use Unicode bold characters — generated once, pasted everywhere. Just remember Unicode "bold" isn't real formatting; it's look-alike characters that screen readers may read wrong, so never put a link, @handle, date, or price in styled characters.

Styles markdown can't produce. Native markdown gives you bold, italic, strike and code — that's it. It can't do sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs, 𝓈𝒸𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓉 fonts, upside-down text, or decorative spacing. For those, a Unicode tool is the only option, on any app.

The rule of thumb: inside WhatsApp, Discord, Slack or Telegram, use the native syntax above — it's cleaner and more accessible. Reach for a generator only when you're leaving those apps or want a look markdown simply doesn't offer. If you want a ready-made composer for any one of them, try the WhatsApp formatter, the Discord formatter, or the Slack formatter.