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A guide to Markdown on Discord.

Markdown Text 101

Want to inject some flavor into your everyday text chat? You're in luck! Discord uses Markdown, a simple plain text formatting system that'll help you make your sentences stand out. Here's how to do it! Just add a few characters before & after your desired text to change your text! I'll show you some examples...

What this guide covers:

Text Formatting

Italics *italics* or _italics_

Underline italics __*underline italics*__

Bold **bold**

Underline bold __**underline bold**__

Bold Italics ***bold italics***

underline bold italics __***underline bold italics***__

Underline __underline__

Strikethrough ~~Strikethrough~~

Don't want to use markdown? You can slap a backslash in front of your statement, or put your message in a code block, and it'll escape the markdown formatting. You'll see those asterisks as you'd like!

Organizational Text Formatting

Headers

To create a header, you need to include a specific number of the hash/pound sign character (#). Use (#) for a big header, (##) for a smaller header, or (###) for an even smaller header as the first character(s) in a new line.

headers

Subtext

Like Headers, you can add subtext to any chat message. To do so, add a (-# ) before the text you want to appear in the subtext. Don’t forget the space after # and before your message.

subtext

Masked Links

You can use masked links to make text a clickable or pressable hyperlink. To do so, you need to include the text you want displayed in brackets and then the URL in parentheses. For example:

masked links

If you don't wish to embed a link, you can wrap the link with <> to remove the embed for that specific link.

Unordered Lists

You can create a bulleted list using either (-) or (*) in the beginning of each line. You can indent your list by adding a space before (-) or (*) at the beginning of each line.

unordered lists

Ordered Lists

To create an ordered list, add line items with numbers followed by periods. The numbers don't have to be in numerical order, but the list will always start with the first number. You can indent your list by adding a space before the number at the beginning of each line.

ordered lists

Code Blocks

Discord also supports code blocks as well. You can make your own code blocks by wrapping your text in backticks (`)

one line code blocks

You can also use three backticks (```) to create multiline code blocks, like this beautifully written haiku.

multiline code blocks

Block Quotes

The syntax to use Block Quotes is > or >>> followed by a space.

> at the beginning of a line of text, creates a single-line block quote.

one line block quote

>>> at the beginning of a line of text, creates a multi-line block quote. All text from >>> until the end of the message will be included in the quote.

multiline block quote

Spoiler Tags

You can manually tag spoilers by using the syntax || around your text or by typing /spoiler before your message. This is also negated by a code block.

spoiler tags

Syntax Highlighting

If you really want to spruce up your code blocks, you can denote a specific language for syntax highlighting, by typing the name of the language you want the code block to expect right after the first three backticks beginning your code block. An example...

syntax highlighting

There are many different languages in place of Markdown that Discord's syntax highlighting support. Each different language has its own approach to highlight-able syntax. Note that you won't be able to view syntax highlighting on the mobile app.

asciidoc

asciidoc

autohotkey

autohotkey

bash

bash

coffeescript

coffeescript

cpp (C++)

cpp

cs (C#)

cs

css

css

diff

diff

fix

fix

glsl

glsl

ini

ini

json

json

md (markdown)

md

ml

ml

prolog

prolog

ps

ps

py

py

tex

tex

xl

xl

xml

xml

yaml

yaml

And you get the idea! Now you're a Discord text markdown expert. Get out there and highlight your statements!

Acknowledgements

Discord
Discord Highlight.js

If you have any questions or want to get in contact with me, you can add matthewzring on Discord or join my discord server.

@I-am-TURBO
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have you ever considered adding details about ANSI syntax highlighting?

edit: oh one already exists

so confusing o.o

@Andre601
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Andre601 commented May 7, 2024

A headsup, discord is working on adding a syntax for small text formatting using -# text

It's not yet out from what I've seen, but it's planned.

@I-am-TURBO
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I-am-TURBO commented May 9, 2024

A headsup, discord is working on adding a syntax for small text formatting using -# text

It's not yet out from what I've seen, but it's planned.

interesting. I'm surprised reddit has thst capability before discord by typing ^(like this) or ^like ^this ^lol

@Aerondyyyy
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This isn't markdown but it's super handy:

https://discord.com/developers/docs/reference#message-formatting-timestamp-styles

https://hammertime.cyou

Post a timestamp that always shows the local time of the viewer. Can also do full date with your local time/date formatting and countdowns.

Every social media website should implement this.

@I-am-TURBO
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I-am-TURBO commented May 26, 2024

This isn't markdown but it's super handy:

https://discord.com/developers/docs/reference#message-formatting-timestamp-styles

https://hammertime.cyou

Post a timestamp that always shows the local time of the viewer. Can also do full date with your local time/date formatting and countdowns.

Every social media website should implement this.

Note

omg bro I love you for the first link!!! more than the unix timestamps on that page so dope.

Important

click here

I'm confused on </NAME SUBCOMMAND_GROUP SUBCOMMAND:ID> tho. I only know how to link a slash command via </help:0> or whatever the command is. what's it mean by subcommand_group and then subcommand?

@SohamTilekar
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Which one is used for hiligiting the asembly other than arm

@kkrypt0nn
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Which one is used for hiligiting the asembly other than arm

Those I know are armasm, avrasm, llvm, mipsasm and x86asm

@bradenbest
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bradenbest commented Jul 10, 2024

Note that you can embed spoilered links by inserting a space before or after the url

||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ ||

Note the space between the end of the url and the ||

@flingoXD
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A headsup, discord is working on adding a syntax for small text formatting using -# text

It's not yet out from what I've seen, but it's planned.

it's out now, you can do stuff like a fake "only you can see this"

@SKLD-xm
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SKLD-xm commented Jul 13, 2024

Yep. -# works now. Example:
image

@SKLD-xm
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SKLD-xm commented Jul 13, 2024

image

@syntax-tm
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the source code examples are pretty awful. even just showing the language's identifier, keywords, etc. colors you didn't even include the most basic things.

@WitherredAway
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the source code examples are pretty awful. even just showing the language's identifier, keywords, etc. colors you didn't even include the most basic things.

Suggest changes then, that's not very helpful.

@serious-angel
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the source code examples are pretty awful. even just showing the language's identifier, keywords, etc. colors you didn't even include the most basic things.

Suggest changes then, that's not very helpful.

Exactly. That word "awful" and someone complaining at public repository...

Someone will turn away their nose from roses...
While other for a bitter herb will not complain...
For once been helped someone will thank forever...
For other give your life - won't even pay a franc...

~ Omar Khayyam, 1048-1131 AD {Translated}

@zalhabash
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zalhabash commented Aug 1, 2024

2 things regarding syntax highlighting:

  1. The link to highlightjs redirects to a info page telling that they aren't a CDN... So maybe remove it. Especially because...
  2. Discord switched over to highlight colours from GitHub. Not sure if that actually also changes the highlighter used tho. Still think it's better to remove the link...

There's someone who made something very similar to that old highlight.js demo: https://github.com/cherryblossom000/discord-syntax-highlighting

I thought this might be useful to link to because it's directly from highlight.js docs and only includes the name of the languages and the aliases for those languages rather than extensive code samples, but Discord doesn't include every single language from highlight.js: https://highlightjs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/supported-languages.html

@Hacksore
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Hacksore commented Aug 3, 2024

Hi folks 👋

I copypasta'd all the stuff from the OP into this new repo/website. For what it's worth I haven't had time to go through all the comments to add everything.

If you are interested in contributing to the project don't hesitate. Figure it'd be better to have a standalone project to document new/existing markdown features from discord.

Repo: https://github.com/Hacksore/discord-md
Site: https://discord-md.vercel.app

@Hashbrown777
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Anyway to have a bullet point span multiple lines?

If I do

* item 1
item explanation
* item 2

it does

  • item 1

item explanation

  • item 2

but then if I do

* item 1
  item explanation
* item 2

it does

  • item 1item explanation
  • item 2

i'd want

  • item 1
    item explanation
  • item 2

@serious-angel
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serious-angel commented Sep 16, 2024

it does

  • item 1item explanation
  • item 2

@Hashbrown777, I tried viewing the example in the Discord browser version stable 326257 (95c6a53) in Google Chrome 128.0.6613.137 (rev. fe621c5aa2d6b987e964fb1b5066833da5fb613d), and it looks like the following, where the result visually matches the CommonMark behavior but does not match its DOM:

Screenshot_20240916_150640

I.e. In CommonMark, it would be:

<ul>
<li>
<p>item 1</p>
<p>item explanation</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>item 2</p>
</li>
</ul>

At Discord, it's:

<ul><li><span><span>item 1
item explanation</span></span></li><li><span><span>item 2</span></span></li></ul>

The reason the indentation in Discord works inside a singular <span> in certain clients is the following:

.markup_abc123 li {
    white-space: break-spaces;
}

Some clients may currently not support the CSS property value (i.e. CanIUse, and therefore are you sure the client in your environment does?

@Hashbrown777
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I'm using discord..

@God-damnit-all
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I made a website that shows all the possible languages: https://discord-syntax-highlighting.vercel.app

(source: https://github.com/cherryblossom000/discord-syntax-highlighting)

This is great, but I wish you could input your own text. I know there's a highlight.js demo, but it doesn't match with Discord's color scheme.

@I-am-TURBO
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A headsup, discord is working on adding a syntax for small text formatting using -# text

It's not yet out from what I've seen, but it's planned.

1000184751

@serious-angel
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serious-angel commented Oct 13, 2024

under mentions you might wanna add: <id:home>, <id:browse> & <id:customize>:

@I-am-TURBO , please consider stating the suggestion in the GitHUb repo Issues instead, to also keep it for the future in more organized form ^^

@I-am-TURBO
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under mentions you might wanna add: <id:home>, <id:browse> & <id:customize>:

@I-am-TURBO , please consider stating the suggestion in the GitHUb repo Issues instead, to also keep it for the future in more organized form ^^

ya know.... I should have thought of that. thanks for this!

@artshade i did as you suggested.

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