How to use text formatting symbols. Formatting can be fun!

Below are some ways to format text in Steepster that I have discovered using every symbol on my standard English keyboard (I believe these symbols are within the standard ASCII character set).

Surround the text with these symbols—with no spaces on either side (or it won’t work) to get the desired effect. I put spaces in the examples on the right otherwise the symbols won’t show up. I had to use ……… to add white-space, as the editor/parser won’t accept tabs or white-space:

BOLD……………………………………………….* BOLD *
ITALICS……………………………………………. _ ITALICS _
BOLD-AND-ITALICS………………………..* _ BOLD-AND-ITALICS _ *
UNDERLINE………………………………………+ UNDERLINE +
MAKES-FONT-SIZE-SMALLER………………………~ MAKES-FONT-SIZE-SMALLER ~
SUPERSCRIPT…………………………………….^ SUPERSCRIPT ^
STRIKETHROUGH……………………………- STRIKETHROUGH -
……………………………< YOU CAN’T SEE ME UNLESS YOU’RE THE AUTHOR AND YOU TRY TO EDIT THIS POST >
ADDITION:
→………………………………………………. – >
subscript……………………………..~ subscript ~
18pt font size…………% {font-size:18pt}18pt font size %
text in red………………………….% {color:red}text in red %

Here’s the Wikipedia page with a table of instructions (THANK YOU @Tea Trade!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_(markup_language)#Formatting_help_table

You can use any combination of these, such that the symbols on the right hand side must be in the reverse order of those used on the left hand side: First In Last Out (FILO), like a stack. 123Blah blah blah321.

39 Replies

This is great. Thank you! :)

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Alana237 said

Yay! I could never figure these out.

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SimplyJenW said

Thank you for the list all in one place!!

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Stephanie said

Yes! This is super helpful to have these listed all in one post. Thank you so much!!! :)

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neato!!
I only ever knew how to use the bold feature.
How does the last one work exactly?

I think its an HTML thing: basically, the editor/parser does not post whatever is in the “<” “>” symbols. It can be useful if you have some notes for yourself you don’t want others to see —one reason for using them may be that you have a rough draft of something you may later want to post, and you don’t have it saved anywhere else. You may not ever need to use those symbols, I just posted them, because, well, you never know?

I hope that helps. : )

aha! that explains a few things actually… like why some of my msgs randomly “ate” some of my words :P
thx SimpliciTea!

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strikethrough cool! Ty SimpliciTea :)

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I’m glad so many of you find some usefulness in using the formatting symbols (and hopefully a little bit of fun, too).

I love using them in my reviews and posts. I’m continually experimenting with new and creative ways to use them.

Here is one interesting usage of the “<” and “>” symbols. I updated a few of my reviews, mostly changing some of the formatting (it’s the detail ‘orientated-ness’ in me). And I wanted to somehow document when I changed it. So at the very top of the review I put the date in-between those fun little symbols, and wallah! I can see it, but you can’t!
Na na na na na!

Functional! Cool! Neato Bondito (ever hear of that one?)! I am feeling quite silly right now :-}

Here’s an example: < updated 9-11-11 > (without the spaces) Ten years ago today. Wow.

Alas! I still haven’t figured out how to add white-space. So for now, I use …… to help me align things.

Happy formatting!

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I just discovered another cool thing by accident. Combining the “-” symbol with the “>” symbol creates an arrow like this: → Pretty cool, huh?

aw neat! I wonder how many other hidden formulas there are

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Dorothy said

Great post, I’d love to see this sticky`d or in the FAQ :D

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Very helpful!!! I figured out bold on accident. And then I figured out superscript when trying to do italics. But I never would have figured out to use underscore for italics if not for this post! Thank you! :)

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