WhatsApp Text Formatting: Bold, Italic, Strikethrough & Monospace

A message that's just one grey block of text is easy to skim past. A message with a bold headline, a short list and a clear price is easy to act on. WhatsApp has had built-in formatting for years, but most people only know about bold. This guide covers every formatting option WhatsApp supports in 2026, the exact characters to type, and the mistakes that make formatting silently fail.

The four classic formats

WhatsApp formats text using simple symbols wrapped around the words. You type the symbols; the recipient sees the styled text (the symbols disappear).

| Format | What you type | What they see | |---|---|---| | Bold | *text* | text | | Italic | _text_ | text | | Strikethrough | ~text~ | ~~text~~ | | Monospace | ```text``` (three backticks each side) | text |

A few examples:

• *Order confirmed* → Order confirmed
• _Free delivery this week_ → Free delivery this week
• ~$49~ $39 → ~~$49~~ $39
• ```ORDER-2841``` → ORDER-2841 in a fixed-width font

Monospace is perfect for anything the reader may want to copy exactly: order numbers, discount codes, tracking IDs, addresses.

The newer formats: lists, quotes and inline code

WhatsApp expanded formatting in 2024, and these all work in current versions:

• Bulleted list — start a line with - or * (symbol, then a space).
• Numbered list — start a line with 1. , 2. and so on.
• Block quote — start a line with > . Great for repeating the customer's question before you answer it.
• Inline code — wrap a word in single backticks: `code`. Similar to monospace but for a single word inside a normal sentence.

So a tidy order confirmation might be typed as:

*Your order is confirmed* ✅

Items:
- 2 × Ceramic mug
- 1 × Gift box

Order number: ```WA-10422```
_Estimated delivery: 2–3 working days_

Combining formats

You can nest formats, as long as the symbols are properly paired:

• *_bold and italic_* → bold and italic
• ~*sold out*~ → ~~sold out~~

Keep the inner and outer pairs in the same order (open outer, open inner, close inner, close outer). *_text*_ will break.

Using the formatting menu instead of symbols

If you don't want to memorise symbols:

• iPhone: select the text, tap the arrow in the popup, then choose Bold, Italic, Strikethrough or Monospace.
• Android: select the text, tap the three-dot menu (⋮) in the selection toolbar, and pick the style.
• WhatsApp Web / Desktop: select the text and use the formatting shortcuts, or simply type the symbols.

The menu inserts the exact same symbols for you — the result is identical.

Why your formatting isn't working

These are the errors we see most often:

1. A space inside the symbols. * bold * won't work. The symbol must touch the first and last character: *bold*.
2. Missing the closing symbol. *bold shows the asterisk as a normal character.
3. Punctuation outside the pair is fine; inside can confuse it. *Sale!* works. *Sale*! also works. But *Sale !* may not.
4. Symbols across line breaks. Bold doesn't span multiple paragraphs. Format each line separately.
5. Formatting in a pre-filled link. If you put *bold* in a wa.me link's text= parameter, the asterisks must be URL-encoded as %2A. A generator handles this for you — see the next section.

Formatting inside a click-to-chat link

You can pre-fill a formatted message so that customers who tap your link see a styled draft ready to send. For example, a link that opens WhatsApp with the message Hi! I'd like a quote for: followed by a blank line. When you create your free WhatsApp link, just type the asterisks in the message box and the tool encodes them correctly. It's a small touch that makes the conversation feel organised from the first message. Read more in our guide on creating a WhatsApp link with a pre-filled message.

Formatting vs fancy Unicode fonts

There's a second way to make text look different in WhatsApp: replacing letters with look-alike Unicode characters (𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱, 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮, etc.). These work in places native formatting doesn't — profile names, group names, statuses — but they're Latin-only and screen readers struggle with them. Our WhatsApp text formatter generates both: it previews native markup and offers fancy styles side by side. For a deeper comparison, see how to use fancy fonts in WhatsApp.

Formatting best practices for business messages

• One bold line at the top. Treat it as the subject line of an email.
• Bullets for anything with more than two items. People scan lists; they don't read paragraphs.
• Monospace for codes. It signals "copy this exactly".
• Strikethrough for old prices only. Overusing it looks spammy.
• Don't format entire messages. Bold everything and nothing stands out.
• Test on both platforms. Send yourself a message and check it on iPhone and Android before using a template with hundreds of customers.

Well-formatted messages get read faster and answered more often. If you're building a set of reusable templates, our collection of WhatsApp marketing message templates shows how formatting fits into greetings, follow-ups and promotions.