Discord Text Formatting: Cheat Sheet and Formatter

Discord text formatting comes in two kinds. Inline styles wrap the words they change. Line styles go at the very start of a line, followed by a space. Type the symbols exactly as shown; Discord converts them when you send.

Styles can be layered by nesting their symbols. Markdown Text 101 lists four combinations, and all four follow the same pattern: the underline marks go on the outside, the asterisks on the inside.

Bold italic is its own three-asterisk form rather than a nesting of two. Other orders, and combinations with strikethrough or spoilers, are not shown in the article. They may work, but test them in a message before you build a server announcement around them.

When a combination comes out wrong, check that the closing symbols mirror the opening ones. In __**underline bold**__ the text opens with underscores then asterisks, so it must close with asterisks then underscores. A missing or extra character anywhere in that chain usually leaves the symbols showing in the sent message.

A header is one, two or three # characters at the beginning of a new line: # for a big header, ## for a smaller one, ### for an even smaller one. Discord's article repeats the one rule that trips people up: put a space between the # characters and your text. “#Rules” stays plain; “# Rules” becomes a header.

Subtext works the same way with -# followed by a space, and Discord stresses that it “must be at the very beginning of the line in order for it to work”. A -# in the middle of a sentence is just two characters. Subtext is useful for a small credit or footnote under an announcement.

In a multi-line message, each line is judged on its own. You can put a header on line one, normal text on line two and subtext on line three.

Start each line with - or * and a space to make a bulleted list. To indent an item under the one above it, add two spaces before the - or *. The article's note on spacing also lists “1.” among list markers, so numbered lines work the same way: number, period, space, text.

Quotes come in two sizes. A > and a space at the start of a line quotes that single line. Three of them, >>> and a space, quote the first line and everything after it in the same message, which is handy for pasting a long passage.

A masked link shows your own words as a clickable link. Put the text in square brackets and the address in parentheses straight after it, with no space between them: the rules.

Wrap text in single backticks for inline code, or put ``` on the line before and the line after for a multi-line block. Discord shows the content in a fixed-width font on a darker background, which makes it the right tool for commands, server IPs and anything people need to copy exactly.

Because the content is shown as typed, a code block is also the safe place for text full of asterisks or underscores, such as file names like my_file_name or a math expression with * signs, which markdown might otherwise turn into italics.

Code blocks also cancel other formatting. Discord documents this for spoilers in both articles: a spoiler inside a code block is not hidden. If you are posting a puzzle answer, keep the || outside any backticks.

The same fence is what the community uses for colored text: a code block tagged ansi, filled with escape codes. Discord has not documented that, which is why it gets its own page with its own caveats.

Typing ||text|| is one of four ways to hide something. The Spoiler Tags article lists the others, and a few limits worth knowing before you rely on them.

Sometimes you want people to see **bold** with the asterisks, for instance when explaining formatting to a new member. Discord's Markdown Text 101 article does not document an escape character for this, and we have not tested one, so this page does not tell you that a backslash works.

What the article does give you is the code span. Text inside backticks is shown as typed, which is how the cheat sheet above would be written in a Discord message. For a whole block of examples, use a ``` code block.

If an undocumented trick you have seen elsewhere works for you, it may still change without notice. The code span is the documented route.

Discord text formatting has no color syntax and no font choice. Its shortcuts guide says it plainly: Discord “doesn't have built-in font commands”. The only size control is the three header levels and subtext.

Each missing piece has a workaround with its own trade-off. Color comes from ```ansi code blocks, which are community-documented and unreliable on phones. A different letter shape comes from pasting Unicode characters such as 𝓼𝓬𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓽 or 𝕺𝖑𝖉 𝕰𝖓𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖍, covered on the Discord fonts page. For your name only, Nitro's Display Name Styles adds Discord's own fonts and effects.

On desktop you don't have to type the symbols. Discord's shortcuts guide lists Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+I for italic and Ctrl+U for underline (⌘ on a Mac), plus Ctrl+Shift+M to start or stop inline code. Select the words first, then press the keys.

A message can be 2,000 characters, or 4,000 with Nitro, according to Discord's account caps table. The formatter above counts everything you type, symbols included, against 2,000 so a formatted message won't be cut short. Discord does not say whether it counts the symbols, so the margin is deliberate.

One accessibility point: markdown bold and italic keep the real letters, so screen readers read the words normally. If you are choosing between **bold** and a Unicode 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝 for rules or announcements, markdown is the one everyone can read.