Text formatting is a simple way to enhance a message and get your point across better, but it’s not always supported by your app of choice. Soon, though, WhatsApp may add support for more advanced text formatting.

WhatsApp already supports basic text formatting across platforms, such as bold, italics, and strikethrough. The app even has a support page that explains how to do this, with both Android and iPhone using a long-press option to access formatting options.

But, soon, WhatsApp is adding support for further formatting options. The new feature was spotted and demoed by the folks at WABetaInfo, with syntax-based formatting for quotes and bullet lists.

This requires users to format text based on a series of operators that surround the text to be formatted. It’s not an uncommon option, with apps such as Slack and Google Chat (formerly Hangouts) offering syntax alongside a formatting bar – WhatsApp also supports syntax for basic formatting.

As seen in the demo below, quotes are started using “>” while bullet list items need to be preceded with “-” to get the formatting. Users can also set text to appear as a code block using an apostrophe at the beginning and end of the text they want to format.

While these options surely won’t be used nearly as much as bold, italics, and others, it’s certainly nice to have them available. This more advanced text formatting isn’t widely available just yet, as it’s still locked to beta versions of WhatsApp.

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