WhatsApp has introduced four new text formatting options to enhance user experience and facilitate clearer, more organized messaging. Starting today, WhatsApp aficionados can now employ bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, and inline code in their messages.
These additions have been under development for some time and are now rolling out across WhatsApp platforms, including Android, iOS, Web, and Mac. Furthermore, this update extends support to Channels, broadening the scope of its utility. The new formatting features complement the previously available styles – bold, italic, strikethrough, and monospace – thereby enriching the textual expression toolkit available to WhatsApp’s global user base.
Accompanying the rollout of these new features is a visual guide provided by WhatsApp, aimed at helping users quickly grasp the markdown-style syntax required to utilize the new formats. This guide is a thoughtful addition, ensuring that users can easily implement the enhancements without needing extensive technical knowledge.
Here’s a quick guide on how to use these handy new tools directly in your chats:
- Bulleted Lists: Turn grocery lists or key takeaways into neat bullet points. Just start your line with a hyphen (-) followed by a space.
- Numbered Lists: Need to convey step-by-step instructions or a ranking?Numbered lists are your friend. Begin your line with a number followed by a period (.) and a space.
- Block Quotes: Make a quote, piece of text, or reaction stand out by formatting it as a block quote. Simply place the greater-than symbol (>) followed by a space before the text.
- Inline Code: Perfect for highlighting individual words, code snippets, or technical terms. Wrap your text with backticks (`) on either side.
