Want a bit of fantasy in your messages on WhatsApp? A few simple tags let you bold, italicize, strikethrough, and even change the font. Perfect to impress your contacts!
Like all instant messengers – Messenger, Signal, Telegram, Viber, etc. –, WhatsApp is designed to write messages quickly. Logical, since it is spontaneity that prevails in conversations. In fact, as with other applications of this kind, no formatting option is offered by default: you can only use one typeface, in roman style, period!
Still, there’s a way to make text italic, bold, strikethrough, and even another font — just one, that’s not to be dreamed of either. How ? Quite simply by using “tags”. In practice, all you have to do is place special characters before and after the text to be formatted in the edit field, without spaces, and you’re done: the tags disappear and the text is automatically formatted before sending, which allows you to control the style. It is even possible to combine several enrichments in the same message, provided you have a little patience. And the technique works on both Android and iOS.
In fact, the most difficult thing is still to know and memorize these famous tags. Since these are special characters, you also need to know where to find them on a mobile keyboard. The principle is again very simple, whether you are on an iPhone or an Android device: you have to switch to the appropriate mode on the keyboard or press and hold a character to display and use the available symbols, as you do for accented capitals, for example.
Here are the tags to use in the input field of WhatsApp to enrich your messages and amaze your correspondents.
To bold a word, phrase, or sentence on WhatsApp, place two asterisks around it, *like this*. In the input area, the text automatically changes to bold before sending.
To put text in italics, place it between two underscores (also called underscores), _like this_. In the same way, the text is automatically modified in the input area before sending.
To make a portion of text strikethrough, place it between two tildes, ~like this~. Again, the input box displays the edited text before sending.
WhatsApp by default uses only one font for all messages received or sent. And no function is proposed to change it. But it is possible to use a monospace type font where all the characters are spaced the same way – this is called “monospaced” – as on the typewriters of yesteryear. To pass a text in monospace, it must be placed between six inverted apostrophes (also called backticks), three before and three after, “`like this“`. The operation is more delicate – especially since the inverted apostrophe should not be confused with another symbol such as the grave accent… – but the result is rather pleasant. Again, the text is automatically formatted in the input box before sending.
On iPhone or iPad, if you don’t have the patience to type these tags, you can also select a portion of text to highlight it, and format it using the pop-up menu that appears.
