Emphasis
You can add emphasis by making text bold or italic.
Bold
To bold text, add two asterisks or underscores before and after a word or phrase. To bold the middle of a word for emphasis, add two asterisks without spaces around the letters.
| Markdown | HTML | Rendered Output |
|—-|—-|—-|
| I just love **bold text**. | I just love <strong>bold text</strong>. | I just love bold text. |
| I just love __bold text__. | I just love <strong>bold text</strong>. | I just love bold text. |
| Love**is**bold | Love<strong>is</strong>bold | Loveisbold |
Bold Best Practices
Markdown applications don’t agree on how to handle underscores in the middle of a word. For compatibility, use asterisks to bold the middle of a word for emphasis.
| ✅ Do this | ❌ Don’t do this |
|—-|—-|
| Love**is**bold | Love__is__bold |
Italic
To italicize text, add one asterisk or underscore before and after a word or phrase. To italicize the middle of a word for emphasis, add one asterisk without spaces around the letters.
| Markdown | HTML | Rendered Output |
|—-|—-|—-|
| Italicized text is the *cat’s meow*. | Italicized text is the <em>cat’s meow</em>. | Italicized text is the cat’s meow. |
| Italicized text is the _cat’s meow_. | Italicized text is the <em>cat’s meow</em>. | Italicized text is the cat’s meow. |
| A*cat*meow | A<em>cat</em>meow | Acatmeow |
Italic Best Practices
Markdown applications don’t agree on how to handle underscores in the middle of a word. For compatibility, use asterisks to italicize the middle of a word for emphasis.
| ✅ Do this | ❌ Don’t do this |
|—-|—-|
| A*cat*meow | A_cat_meow |
Bold and Italic
To emphasize text with bold and italics at the same time, add three asterisks or underscores before and after a word or phrase. To bold and italicize the middle of a word for emphasis, add three asterisks without spaces around the letters.
| Markdown | HTML | Rendered Output |
|—-|—-|—-|
| This text is ***really important***. | This text is <em><strong>really important</strong></em>. | This text is really important. |
| This text is ___really important___. | This text is <em><strong>really important</strong></em>. | This text is really important. |
| This text is __*really important*__. | This text is <em><strong>really important</strong></em>. | This text is really important. |
| This text is **_really important_**. | This text is <em><strong>really important</strong></em>. | This text is really important. |
| This is really***very***important text. | This is really<em><strong>very</strong></em>important text. | This is reallyveryimportant text. |
:::info
Note: The order of the em and strong tags might be reversed depending on the Markdown processor you’re using.
:::
Bold and Italic Best Practices
Markdown applications don’t agree on how to handle underscores in the middle of a word. For compatibility, use asterisks to bold and italicize the middle of a word for emphasis.
| ✅ Do this | ❌ Don’t do this |
|—-|—-|
| This is really***very***important text. | This is really___very___important text. |
:::info
This guide is a Matt Cone project available on Markdown Guide under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
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