# 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...

## Sweet Styles

*Italics*	\*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, and it'll escape the markdown formatting. You'll see those asterisks as you'd like! Just keep in mind, it doesn't work in messages with edits or underscores.

## 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](https://i.imgur.com/S3oW4JR.png)

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

![multiline code blocks](https://i.imgur.com/UFRHJza.png)

## 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](https://i.imgur.com/tmzwzb3.png)

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. In Markdown, you can see that here: 

asciidoc

![asciidoc](https://i.imgur.com/jLsmP9Y.png)

autohotkey

![autohotkey](https://i.imgur.com/i3EWfKB.png)

bash

![bash](https://i.imgur.com/iJeMUD3.png)

coffeescript

![coffeescript](https://i.imgur.com/GuBpys2.png)

cpp

![cpp](https://i.imgur.com/1NK1Eje.png)

cs

![cs](https://i.imgur.com/LVu3Vuk.png)

css

![css](https://i.imgur.com/QFzMTzN.png)

diff

![diff](https://i.imgur.com/czV7p0Z.png)

fix

![fix](https://i.imgur.com/xwwvaED.png)

glsl

![glsl](https://i.imgur.com/fGo5NBW.png)

html

![html](https://i.imgur.com/okRulup.png)

ini

![ini](https://i.imgur.com/V7MlXe8.png)

json

![json](https://i.imgur.com/Chvwlk8.png)

md

![md](https://i.imgur.com/RF05Fhc.png)

ml

![ml](https://i.imgur.com/3B2pSVj.png)

prolog

![prolog](https://i.imgur.com/PUO9OEn.png)

py

![py](https://i.imgur.com/RBpuAoE.png)

tex

![tex](https://i.imgur.com/8T5dsOM.png)

xl

![xl](https://i.imgur.com/iIMHv14.png)

xml

![xml](https://i.imgur.com/8blHUjN.png)

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

Resources taken from Hammer and Chisel (https://bit.ly/1Ls2j6g) and Discord Highlight.js (https://discord.gg/SkZTwPk). Special thanks to Frosty#2790 for his help in making this guide.