Discord Fonts and Text Formatting: Bold, Italics, Underline, and Strikethrough

Discord lets you format message text with Markdown, so you can make words bold, italic, underlined, or struck through without changing the actual message font. The fastest method is to wrap the text in a few special characters before you send it. Discord also supports code blocks, spoilers, headings, lists, links, and block quotes.

One important distinction: message formatting is not the same as changing fonts. Discord's official shortcut guide says message text does not have built-in font commands. Discord Nitro now offers Display Name Styles for names, but those styles do not turn ordinary chat messages into custom fonts.

Discord bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough syntax

Type your message normally, add the Markdown characters around the words you want to style, then send the message. Discord's official Markdown guide documents the following combinations.

How to combine Discord text styles

You can stack compatible Markdown markers. For example, __***Status update***__ combines underline, bold, and italics. If you also need strikethrough, place double tildes around the section you want crossed out, such as ~~__***Old status***__~~. Keeping the opening and closing markers balanced makes formatting easier to troubleshoot.

On the desktop app, Discord also documents keyboard shortcuts for selected text: Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, and Ctrl+U on Windows, or Command+B, Command+I, and Command+U on macOS. See Discord's commands and shortcuts guide for the current list.

Code blocks and spoilers

Use one backtick on each side for inline code, such as `npm install`. For a multi-line code block, put three backticks before the first line and three after the final line. Code blocks are useful when you want characters such as asterisks or underscores to display literally instead of being interpreted as formatting.

For hidden spoiler text, place two vertical bars on each side: ||This is a spoiler||. Discord also lets you mark selected text as a spoiler from the message formatting controls. Discord notes that spoiler markup inside code blocks is not hidden; details are in the official Spoiler Tags guide.

Headers, subtext, lists, links, and quotes

Discord's current Markdown supports more than emphasis. These options are useful for rules, announcements, and longer messages:

• Headers: start a new line with # , ## , or ### . A space after the hash marks is required.
• Subtext: start a new line with -# .
• Bulleted lists: begin each line with - or * . Discord documents two leading spaces for an indented list item.
• Masked links: use [link text](https://example.com).
• Block quotes: begin one line with > ; use >>> before the first line for a multi-line quote.

Can you change the font or text color in Discord messages?

For normal message text, Markdown changes style, not the underlying font family. Discord's current official Markdown documentation does not list commands for choosing an arbitrary message color. Older tricks that used labels such as diff, ini, css, or fix depended on code-block syntax highlighting, so they should not be treated as reliable color-formatting commands.

Discord does now have a separate Nitro feature called Display Name Styles. The official Display Name Styles FAQ says Nitro members can customize how their display name appears with fonts, colors, and effects. Options listed by Discord include gg sans, Tempo, Sakura, 8Bit, and Journal, among others. This affects your display name rather than the body text of messages.

Quick troubleshooting when formatting does not work

• Check that the opening and closing Markdown characters match.
• For headers, subtext, lists, and quotes, make sure the required marker is at the beginning of the line and includes the needed space.
• If you want Markdown characters to appear as plain text, put the text in an inline or multi-line code block.
• If a copied example behaves unexpectedly, type the markers manually to rule out look-alike Unicode characters from another app.

For everyday use, the core set is simple: **bold**, *italics*, __underline__, and ~~strikethrough~~. Once those are familiar, Discord's headings, lists, code blocks, spoilers, and quotes make longer messages much easier to scan.