Bold

On this page, you’ll learn:

  • How to make text bold in AsciiDoc.

  • Where to modify your site’s bold text styling.

Text that is marked up as bold will stand out against the regular, surrounding text due to the application of a thicker or darker font. Bold is useful when the text needs to catch the attention of a site visitor quickly scanning a page.

Bold syntax

A word or phrase is marked as bold when it’s enclosed in a single set of asterisks (e.g., *word*) (constrained formatting). Bounded characters are marked as bold when they’re enclosed in a set of double asterisks (e.g., char**act**ers) (unconstrained formatting).

Bounded characters are characters that are:

  • directly preceded by a non-whitespace character, or

  • directly followed by a non-whitespace character.

You don’t need to use double asterisks when an entire word or phrase marked as bold is directly followed by a common punctuation mark, such as ;, ", and !.

Example 1. Bold inline formatting
A bold *word*, and a bold *phrase of text*.

Bold c**hara**cter**s** within a word.

The result of Example 1 is displayed below.

A bold word, and a bold phrase of text.

Bold characters within a word.

Mixing bold with other formatting

You can add multiple emphasis styles to bold text as long as the syntax is placed in the correct order.

Example 2. Order of inline formatting syntax
`*_monospace bold italic phrase_*` & ``**__char__**``acter``**__s__**``

Monospace syntax (`) must be the outermost formatting set (i.e., outside the bold formatting set). Italic syntax (_) is always the innermost formatting set.

The result of Example 2 is displayed below.

monospace bold italic phrase & characters

Site styles

How bold text appears on your site depends on the fonts loaded by your UI and any CSS styles applied to the <strong> HTML tag. You can learn more about customizing how bold text appears in your site in the UI documentation.

AsciiDoc and Asciidoctor resources