Symbols and Fancy Text in Discord (and Slack): Formatting and Names

How-To Guides · 3 min read · Published October 25, 2026

Quick answer: Discord turns a few symbols into formatting: *italic*, **bold**, __underline__, ~~strikethrough~~, ||spoiler||, `code`, and at the start of a line # headers, -# subtext and > quotes. To show one of these characters as itself, put a backslash before it (\*). Any other symbol, such as ★ ✦ ➤, can be pasted or typed with Win+. or Ctrl+Cmd+Space.

Quick reference: every method

Every Alt code below is verified against the real Windows code pages — where none exists we say so, rather than list one that won’t work.

The formatting symbols

Headers, subtext, quotes and lists need a space after the marker. A code block cancels all other formatting inside it, including spoilers.

Showing the symbols themselves

• Backslash escape: \*not italic\*, \_\_init\_\_, \# not a header. The backslash disappears when the message is sent.
• A literal backslash: type two, \\. This is why a hand-typed shrug loses its arm: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ needs ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯. The easy way is the /shrug command.
• Code formatting: anything between backticks is shown exactly as typed.

Discord's built-in commands /shrug, /tableflip and /unflip add the classic faces. More faces are in our shrug kaomoji and table flip kaomoji collections.

Symbols in names and channels

• Username: the unique username allows only lowercase letters, numbers, _ and .. Symbols are not possible there.
• Display name and server nickname: most Unicode symbols work, for example ✦ Nova ✦ or ➤ Sam.
• Channel names: servers often add an emoji and a divider, such as 📢┃announcements. Common dividers are ┃ (U+2503), │ (Alt+179 on Windows) and ・. Copy them from our box drawing symbols.
• Server name and roles: symbols work, but members have to search and @mention roles, so keep the important word in plain letters.

Fancy text

Generators such as our fancy text tool produce letters like 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝓈𝒸𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓉 and ｗｉｄｅ. They are mathematical symbols that look like letters, so they work anywhere Unicode text works. The downsides:

• Screen readers read them as maths symbols or skip them (see symbols and screen readers).
• Searching messages for "bold" will not find 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝.
• Older phones may show some of them as boxes (why).
• Discord's own **bold** is easier to read and to search.

Slack

Slack uses similar but not identical markers:

Slack also has a /shrug command. Symbols such as ✓, → and • can be pasted or typed with the system panels in both apps; Windows Alt codes such as Alt+0149 for • work in the desktop apps too (Alt code list).

Related: emoji vs text symbols, kaomoji and text replacement shortcuts.

Frequently asked questions