Bold and Italic

On this page, you’ll learn:

  • How to bold text with AsciiDoc.

  • How to italicize text with AsciiDoc.

1. Bold and italic syntax

To apply bold styling to a word or phrase, place an asterisk (*) at the beginning and end of the text you wish to format. To bold one or more characters bounded by other characters, place two asterisks (**) before and after the characters.

Words are italicized when they’re enclosed in a single set of underscores (_). Bounded characters are italicized by a set of two underscores (__).

Bold and italic inline formatting
*bold phrase* & **char**acter**s**

_italic phrase_ & __char__acter__s__

*_bold italic phrase_* & **__char__**acter**__s__**

To apply both bold and italic formatting, the bold syntax must be the outermost set and the italic syntax the innermost set.

Result

bold phrase & characters

italic phrase & characters

bold italic phrase & characters

Bold and italicized text can also be monospaced.

Asciidoctor resources