Discord Text Formatting: Complete Markdown Guide + Live Preview
Everything Discord’s markdown can do, on one page — with a live preview so you can test before you send. Type on the left, see exactly how Discord renders it on the right.
Live markdown preview
The complete Discord formatting cheat sheet
| Effect | You type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bold | **text** |
|
| Italic | *text* or _text_ |
|
| Bold italic | ***text*** |
|
| Underline | __text__ |
Two underscores each side |
| Strikethrough | ~~text~~ |
Two tildes each side |
| Inline code | `text` |
Backtick, not apostrophe |
| Code block | ``` on its own lines |
Add a language after the first “` for syntax colors |
| Spoiler | ||text|| |
Readers click to reveal |
| Headers | # ## ### + space |
Start of line only |
| Subtext (small) | -# + space |
Small grey line — see the small text guide |
| Quote | > + space |
>>> quotes everything after it |
| Bullet list | - or * + space |
Indent two spaces for nesting |
| Masked link | [title](url) |
Combining styles
Markdown stacks: **__bold underline__**, ***~~all of it~~***. Order the symbols like nesting brackets — whatever opens first closes last. And to show the symbols literally, escape them with a backslash: *not italic*.
Deep dives per effect
Step-by-step pages with previews and troubleshooting: bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, colored text, code blocks, big text, small text, bullet points and quotes & line breaks.
Where markdown doesn’t work
Usernames, nicknames, server names, channel names and most bio fields ignore markdown completely. For those, use Unicode styles from the Discord font generator — that’s the other half of the system.
Formatting questions
Why is my underline making the text bold instead?
One underscore each side is italic; underline needs two: __like this__. With single underscores Discord treats it as the italic shorthand.
How do I write colored text in Discord?
Through code blocks with a language tag — “`ini, “`css, “`diff and a few others color parts of the text. It’s a syntax-highlighting trick, not true color control, and it only works inside code blocks.
Does formatting work in DMs and threads?
Yes — markdown works in every message context: servers, DMs, group chats, threads and forum posts. It’s names and channel titles that ignore it.
How do I type a # without making a header?
Escape it: \# at the start of a line, or just avoid the space after it — headers only trigger with #, ## or ### followed by a space at line start.