Discord Markdown 201

Project maintained by ParadoxV5 Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

Kudos to @matthewzring (and Discord@Frosty#9449) for the 101 Guide (from which this guide was modified). But – if only it’s enough! Discord needs some comprehensive and updated documentation… …and naw, they did finally published a (new) official guide, but it still doesn’t come close…

Discord Markdown 201

Wanna inject some flavor into your everyday text chat? You’re in luck! Discord uses a variant of Markdown, a simple plain-text formatting system that makes your sentences stand out. Just add a few ornaments around your text to change it!

Don’t want to invoke Markdown? You can slap a backslash\ directly preceding the expression, and it’ll escape the formatting. The same goes with any backslash that Markdown thinks you are escaping something with. You’ll see the arms of your customized shruggie as you’d like!

Sweet Styles

Style	Markdown
Italics	`italics`¹ or `_italics_`
Bold	`Bold`
Underline	`__Underline__`²
~~Strikethrough~~	`~~Strikethrough~~`
	`\|\|Spoiler\|\|`²³
Link	`[Link](https://example.com)`

On Desktop/Web, you can see a preview of your text formatted with these options (except for Link) right in the message box. You’re gonna need some imagination if you are a Mobile user or switched on the legacy chat input in the Accessibility settings 👌.

Underline Bold Italics

It doesn’t show on the Desktop/Web preview (at this writing), but formatting can span multiple lines!⁴

Formatting Gallery, using multiline text

In the non-legacy chat input on Desktop/Web, if your clipboard has a link queued up, you can also quickly link it on some text by selecting them and pasting in-place (Right-Click–Paste works too!).

You can even mix n’ match formatting options into more powerful ones, such as underline bold italics (**___underline bold italics___** or *__**underline bold italics**__* or etc.).

Just dropping a web address without the []() markdown also links it up, which you’ve probably done several times. Note that a “plain” link isn’t based on Markdown, so \ won’t “unlink” it.

Both “plain” and “masked” links also supports previews if the linked site has them set up. To preëmptively squelch the preview, surround the web address with <…>, e.g., [Rick Roll](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ>)

Two formats of links and their previews

Pro tip (and image too) from the Discord blogger: links inside spoilers also have their embed in spoilers!

Spoiler embed

By the way, Discord found a way to stop you from hiding rickrolls or malware behind legit links.

Cannot format a link with a link

Code Blocks

Markdown also has code formatting. In addition to making your text stubby and nerdy, code blocks are also unique because they disable Markdown formatting for their contents. You know what I’m talking about if you ever copy-pasted code or ASCII art and found Discord turning it into pasta. (You can still combine with italics and et cetera from the outside.)

a pile of lines

You can make some of your text code-looking with inline code (like what I’ve done in this guide) by wrapping them in single or double backticks` the same way as bolds and italics. The point of double backticks (``) is in case you want to put single backticks (`) in there. (Because code formatting disables Markdown inside, backslashes\ are out too.)

inline code

You can also create multiline code blocks by placing triple backticks (```) before and after it. Although Discord (unlike other Markdown apps) doesn’t require so (most of the time – you’ll soon see), the good habit is to place them on lines separate from the contents to be consistent. A great convenience for Desktop/Web is that, while under a block code, pressing ↩ Enter/⌅ Return starts a new line instead of posting your half-finished haiku early.

block code

For those coders out there, to really spice up your code blocks, you can denote a specific coding language by typing its name/ID right after the backticks that start your code block. If Discord supports the language, Desktop/Web gets fancy-schmancy syntax highlighting in both the chat and the non-legacy editor. Mobile does not support syntax highlighting (yet?).

⸺ Ruby Discord #rules [screenshotted PTB309567] (using with original author’s permission)

Different languages have more-or-less different approaches to highlightable syntax.

(Almost) complete list with previews (possibly different colors): highlight.js demo
ansi guide: https://gist.github.com/kkrypt0nn/a02506f3712ff2d1c8ca7c9e0aed7c06

Note that if there’s a space anywhere on the line after the beginning backticks (where your language goes), Discord takes that you forgot the good habit and treats it as part of your content.

block code

Lists

You can start a bullet list with either * or - and one or more spaces beginning the line.

For a numbered list, begin the numbered line with any non-negative number, a period and one or more spaces (e.g., 1. ).
- To escape a number list, backslash the dot. E.g., 1\.

Two bullet lines and two numbered lines

Lists don’t have previews in the message box at this writing.

You can indent lines (list or regular lines!) within a list by padding spaces in front.

List continuation

The number of indent spaces should match the number of characters in the index part of the previous level, though Discord rounds space counts up and allows extra spaces in the indent². Like with ASCII art, the monospace font of a temporary code block can aid if counting spaces gets tedious.

* Level 1 line
 * Discords rounds up
  * but for consistency, you should match Level 0’s indent
   * same deal at other levels
    * this Level 2 has 4 characters for the index
     * so indents with 4 spaces or less are all level 3
* another Level 1
   * extra indents have no effect
    * other than requiring more spacebar strikes
*   Level 1 with 2 extra spaces after `*`
  * this Level 1 has 4 characters for the index
    * so indents with 4 spaces or less are all level 2
1. same deal with number indices
  * this Level 1 has 3 characters for the index
   * so indents with 3 spaces or less are all level 2

Indent mechanics, rendered

For Discord Markdown, the index of the first list line declares a bullet or the starting number. Effectively, the indices in your list don’t need to match – only the first index matters. All of 1. 1. 1., 1. 6. 9. and even 1. * - show up autocorrected to 1. 2. 3..

Bullet points after a numbered list start becomes numbered lines ²

Block Quotes

To turn messages into Block Quotes, start your lines with > or >>> (including the one space). Block quotes imply that a piece of text is from somewhere else, such as Google or (back when Replies weren’t a thing) other people’s messages.

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

single-line block quote

On Mobile (and ancient versions of Discord such as the one 101 used), >>> at the beginning of a line of text puts that line and the rest of your message in a multiline block quote.² This saves you the need to punch > on every line, especially for a long passages.

multiline block quote

On Desktop/Web not using the legacy chat input from the Accessibilities menu, both > and >>> also directly become a gray quote-indent line in front of their line inside the message box, similar to how Discord formats quotes in the chat. If you start a new line⁴ from this indented text, Discord conveniently quote-indent your new line for you. Hitting ⌫ Backspace next to the quote-indent deletes it and brings you out of the block quote (as expected).

multiline quote on new editor

A side effect of this convenience is that Desktop/Web’s non-legacy editor does not distinguish >>> -based multiline quotes from > -based ones and cannot create them. Problematic back when code blocks disabled even the quote Markdown. Fortunately, those sent from Mobile are still formatted in the chat. (Ignore the missing leading space, it’s a long-running Mobile-only 🐛 and occurs both inside a block quote and outside.)

code block quote triple- block code quote on new editor

To quote a code block, prefixing your > s down the code block. Works on any platform, just that with Desktop/Web’s code block preview, stabbing it right through the code block looks rather odd.

multi- block code quote on new editor

Headings

To create a heading, prefix a line with 1–3 hashtag#s followed by one or more spaces. The more #s, the smaller the heading. Markdown supports up to six #s, though Discord Markdown only goes to three.

headings

Yes, you can mix n’ match Sweet Styles (inlcuding `code`) inside your headings too. Headings are Bold by default though, so Bold does nothing in headings.

Small Text

New (Desktop PTB309567, Web 309513, Mobile 237.13) and unique² to Discord is the syntax to make a line of text quieter with -# plus one or more spaces. It’s like an anti-heading, just also not Bold by default, and also gray.

small

Discord Tags

While not Markdown, Discord’s things like mentions and channel tags are also text-based structures internally: https://discord.com/developers/docs/reference#message-formatting

Timestamp Generator: https://hammertime.cyou

Backslashes can also escape those, but effects are a bit inconsistent. For consistent results:

<\@USER_ID>, <\#CHANNEL_ID>, <\@&ROLE_ID>, etc.
alternatively: <@USER_ID\>, <#CHANNEL_ID\>, <@&ROLE_ID\>, etc.
:100\:
\<:NAME:ID>, \<a:NAME:ID>, \<t:TIMESTAMP>, etc.

More Fun Stuff

On Desktop/Web, you can bring out a flyout to tag non-text channels (Voice, Guide, etc.) with #!channel
If you start your message with @silent (followed by space or newline), that message won’t push device notifications. (Explicit @pings are still highlighted and counted). See: https://github.com/discord/discord-api-docs/commit/b7d6467

And now you’re a Discord text Markdown super-expert. Go out there and highlight your accomplishments!

This does not apply on Desktop/Web if a space follows the first * (i.e., * text* or * text *) [tested Web 198920, Desktop PTB 198953]; it also does not apply on Mobile if a space precedes the second * (i.e., *text * or * text *) [tested Mobile 178.19]. ↩
These are possibly unique to Discord’s Markdown and not found on other Markdown apps like GitHub. ↩
Also check out: Discord’s support article on spoilers ↩
Huh? You didn’t know you can send multiline messages on Desktop/Web with ⇧ Shift + ↩ Enter/⌅ Return? ↩