The Dead Simple Markdown Guide to Emphasis

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 bold text. | I just love bold text. | | I just love __bold text__. | I just love bold text. | I just love bold text. | | Love**is**bold | Loveisbold | 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 cat's meow. | Italicized text is the cat’s meow. | | Italicized text is the _cat's meow_. | Italicized text is the cat's meow. | Italicized text is the cat’s meow. | | A*cat*meow | Acatmeow | 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 really important. | This text is really important. | | This text is ___really important___. | This text is really important. | This text is really important. | | This text is __*really important*__. | This text is really important. | This text is really important. | | This text is **_really important_**. | This text is really important. | This text is really important. | | This is really***very***important text. | This is reallyveryimportant 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.

:::

\