Discord Text Tricks: Formatting, Coloured Text, Spoilers & Fancy Fonts

Discord is built on Markdown, a lightweight text formatting system that turns simple characters into styled text. Most Discord users know the basics — bold and italic — but the platform supports far more than that, including code blocks with syntax highlighting, block quotes, spoiler tags, headers, lists, and even coloured text using ANSI escape codes. On top of all this, you can paste Unicode-styled text for unique visual effects that go beyond what Markdown offers.

This guide covers every text trick available in Discord, from beginner basics to advanced techniques that will make your messages stand out in any server.

Basic Markdown Formatting

Discord uses a flavour of Markdown for text formatting. Here is the complete reference for basic formatting:

You can combine these markers freely. For example, ***__bold italic underline__*** produces bold, italic, underlined text all at once.

Code Blocks and Syntax Highlighting

Discord supports multi-line code blocks with optional syntax highlighting. Wrap your text in triple backticks and optionally specify a programming language:

```python
def hello():
    print("Hello, Discord!")
```

Discord uses highlight.js for syntax colouring, so most common languages are supported: python, javascript, css, html, json, bash, ruby, java, cpp, and many more.

A lesser-known trick: using diff as the language shows lines starting with + in green and lines starting with - in red, which is useful for showing changes or comparisons.

Coloured Text with ANSI Codes

One of Discord's most powerful and least-known features is support for ANSI colour codes inside code blocks. By using the ansi language identifier, you can display text in various colours.

The syntax uses escape sequences in the format [ESC[COLORm] where COLOR is a number representing the colour. The available text colours are:

Writing ANSI codes manually is fiddly, which is why tools exist to generate them for you. The GYPU Coloured Text Generator lets you pick colours visually and outputs the correctly formatted code block ready to paste into Discord.

Fancy Unicode Text in Discord

Beyond Markdown formatting, you can use Unicode-styled text for a completely different visual effect. Unicode text generators transform your plain text into characters from different Unicode blocks — producing cursive, gothic, bold, double-struck, and many other styles.

This technique is popular for:

• Server announcements — make important messages visually distinct
• Role-playing channels — use different styles for different characters
• Bot commands and embeds — styled text in bot messages stands out
• Username styling — some servers allow styled nicknames

Generate Discord-optimised styled text with the Discord Symbols & Fonts tool. It shows you which styles render best in Discord's font rendering engine and includes decorative symbols commonly used in Discord server branding.

Advanced Tricks and Hidden Features

Here are some lesser-known Discord text features that even experienced users often miss:

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