Discord Chat Formatting: The Complete Guide to Bold, Italic, Code Blocks, and More

## Basic Emphasis When we think about writing a message on Discord, it’s usually just text — no special formatting. But there are plenty of ways you can format your messages. If this seems strange to you, remember that Discord uses Markdown as the basis for all its chat formatting, which might be somewhat familiar if you’ve had any prior experience with Markdown. What makes sense? Let me show you what options you have at hand in terms of formatting. One of the things I’m really impressed by is how many different formats exist for emphasizing text when using Discord: Bold: **text** – This emphasizes the importance of the information being conveyed through bolded words; Italic: *text* – Use these instead of quotation marks or to emphasize something subtly (e.g., “this isn’t quite right”); Underline: __text__ – Like italic, but underlined rather than slanted; Strikethrough: ~~text~~ – Used primarily for removing items from a list or deleting old material, like an incorrect statement; Hidden/Spoiler Text: ||spoilers|| – For situations where spoilers could ruin someone else’s enjoyment. You don’t need to worry too much here; hidden spoiler texts won’t be shown until others decide to reveal them themselves; Add emphasis and context where needed, or apply additional emphasis where necessary depending upon audience reaction! ## Code Blocks and Quotes Code blocks help visualize data better than plain English descriptions do alone, so knowing their inner workings becomes vital whenever discussing computer programs… Discord supports both inline and multi-line code blocks, and colored output through syntax highlighting, but syntax highlighting is more of a workaround than an actual feature and can clash with other formatting rules. For inline code, wrap text in one backtick. For a multi-line code block, put three backticks on the lines before and after the block. A single > at the start of a line creates a quote, while >>> starts a multi-line quote. These are different formats, so HTML tags such as are not the normal Discord chat syntax. ## Timestamp Format Letters In Action Discord timestamps use a Unix timestamp and an optional display-style code. When formatted correctly, Discord renders the time in each reader’s local timezone, which is more useful than typing one fixed timezone into the message. Discord supports dynamic timestamp formatting with multiple display options, including relative time, which automatically adjusts for any reader's timezone. ## References & Credits This guide was originally written in Chinese, then translated to English, edited slightly, then rewritten again. If you’d prefer to read my original article in Mandarin, please visit https://www.cnblogs.com/cnvs/p/17986284.html.