On an active Discord server, a message drowned in the flow goes unnoticed in a matter of seconds. Making a word bold or slipping a title in a header in an announcement changes the game: it captures attention without spamming the channel. Discord does not offer any dropdown menu to select a font, but Markdown syntax and some Unicode tricks provide real leeway to customize messages and usernames.
Markdown Syntax on Discord: What Really Works in Chat
Everything is done through characters placed before and after the text, directly in the input area. No need for extensions or external tools: you type the code, send it, and Discord interprets it.
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- Bold: surround the text with two asterisks on each side. Example:
**important announcement**displays the text in bold, useful for server rules or summaries. - Italic: a single asterisk or an underscore.
*text*or_text_. It is mainly used for asides or nuances of tone. - Strikethrough: two tildes.
~~old price~~strikes through the text, handy for indicating a correction without deleting the original message. - Underline: two underscores.
__text__. Can be combined with bold for a triple effect (**__text__**). - Headers: one, two, or three hashtags followed by a space at the beginning of the line.
# Titleproduces a large title,## Subtitlea medium title. These headers are the native way to get larger text without hacks.
You can combine these tags. A bold-italic text is written as ***text***. The limit is that everything remains in Discord’s basic font: you modify the style, not the typography itself.
For those who want to go further and change the font on Discord beyond Markdown, you need to use other methods, including Unicode characters or code blocks.
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Discord Code Blocks: Modify the Visual Rendering of Text Without Third-Party Tools
Code blocks are underutilized in most guides. They are associated with developers, but they allow any user to radically change the appearance of a message.
Inline Code and Multiline Block
A backtick on each side (`text`) displays the text in a monospace font on a gray background. For an entire block, you use three backticks before and after the text. The rendering is clear, detached from the rest of the conversation.
The lesser-known trick: by adding a programming language name after the three opening backticks, Discord applies syntax highlighting to the text. For example, ```diff followed by a line starting with + displays the text in green, and a line starting with - in red. The ini language colors the text in brackets blue.
You don’t change the font in the strict sense, but you get color in an environment that officially doesn’t offer it. On a gaming server, a recap with green for gains and red for losses is instantly readable.
Concrete Limitations of Code Blocks
The text inside a code block does not support any other Markdown formatting. No bold, no italic, no clickable link. You choose one or the other. Additionally, on mobile, wide code blocks sometimes overflow the screen, which degrades readability. Feedback on this point varies depending on screen size and app version.
Unicode Characters in Discord Username: What Still Works in 2025
Many tutorials suggest using Unicode text generators to transform letters into stylized variants (serif, script, double-struck). You paste the result into your username, and that’s it. Except that Discord has tightened its rules on @usernames.
New unique identifiers (@username) only accept lowercase letters a-z, numbers 0-9, the dot, and the underscore. Fancy Unicode characters are rejected. Therefore, typographic customization no longer works on the identifier itself.
However, the display name and server nicknames still accept Unicode characters. You can paste text generated by a tool like Fancy Text Generator or YayText. The result displays correctly on most devices, although some rare characters appear as squares on older systems.
Points of Caution Regarding Special Characters
- Zero-width characters and certain special symbols may be filtered by Discord, particularly in webhook names, for security reasons.
- A username entirely in fancy Unicode makes it impossible for other server members to type mentions. You lose accessibility for the sake of originality.
- Screen readers misinterpret stylized Unicode characters: each letter is read as its full Unicode name, making the username incomprehensible for users with disabilities.
Discord Interface Settings: Font Size and Accessibility
Changing the font size in Discord settings has nothing to do with Markdown. We’re talking about the overall display of the application, not the style of an individual message.
In the user settings, under Accessibility, a slider allows you to adjust the text size of the entire interface. On desktop, the shortcut Ctrl + and Ctrl - also works to zoom in or out of the entire window. On mobile, it’s the system font size (iOS or Android) that influences the rendering in Discord.
This option is distinct from formatting: it affects all displayed messages, not just yours. For prolonged use on a streaming screen or during a voice session with chat open in overlay, increasing the size a few notches significantly improves comfort.
Discord still does not allow changing the system font of the application (Whitney or the newer gg sans variant). Custom themes via modified clients exist, but they violate the terms of service and expose the account to suspension. It’s better to stick to native tools and Unicode characters for visible customization by others, and reserve the size slider for personal reading comfort.