For some time now, WhatsApp has been testing additional text formatting choices; the first indication of these possibilities came in a January beta release. These additional choices are now available to users on all platforms—Android, iOS, Windows, Web, and Mac—and are no longer in the development stage. Thus, we will walk you through each text formatting option in WhatsApp and show you how to utilize it in this article.
How to Utilize WhatsApp's New Text Formatting Features
WhatsApp now offers numbered lists, block quotes, inline code, and bulleted lists as text style choices. These complement the already-available Italic, Strikethrough, Bold, and Monoscope choices. The use case and instructions for using each of the formats in your messages are provided below.
- Bulleted lists: This can come in handy for creating a list of items. To use it, type: “-” followed by a space and the message to start the list. Note that you will have to repeat the process to add more items to the list. For example: – Fruits, – Milk, – Soap, etc.
- Numbered lists: This is another list format that you can use for steps of a process. Just add a digit between 1 to 9 then a period and space followed by your message to use it. For example: 1. 2. 3. and so on.
- Block quotes: This can be used to quote someone in a group or highlight something. Type “>” followed by a space and then your message. For example: > Where were you yesterday?
- Inline code: You can use it to show a line of code or highlight a sentence. Add the ‘ symbol at the beginning and the end of your message. For example: ‘This is a great book.’
You may refer to this official WhatsApp graphic, which encapsulates all of the recently mentioned choices for text formatting. It also demonstrates the use of the previous formatting tools.
Although I haven't seen many people use text formatting choices in casual talks, I believe they may be quite helpful in group chats. Furthermore, I've already come up with a couple uses for the bullet and numbered list forms in my WhatsApp bookmarks.
You can now test out these text formatting choices by clicking on them. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.