Formatting

Conversation subjects, User Messages and System Messages support limited wiki-style formatting.

Markup

TalkJS supports limited markup syntax similar to popular chat tools, such as WhatsApp and Slack:

Text	Result
`_italic_`	italic
`bold`	bold
`~strikethrough~`	~~strikethrough~~
```code```	`code`

Only text marked up as code can contain newlines. All other markup is only applied when the marked-up text contains no newlines.

Markup is only applied if you place the characters indicating the markup at the boundaries of the word, phrase, or character you want to format. For example:

Text	Result
`_this becomes italic_`	this becomes italic
`this_ doesn't _change`	this_ doesn't _change

You can combine multiple kinds of markup *_like_* this.

Chat with input containing some markdown syntax containing *this* _is_ ~an~ ```example```

Chat with a formatted message saying this is an example

Lists

To create an unordered (bulleted) list, add dashes (-), asterisks (*), or plus signs (+) in front of the line items you want to include in the list.

Chat with input containing markdown syntax to create an ordered list

Chat with a formatted message that contains an ordered list

List formatting options at this point don't support ordered (numbered) or nested lists.

Links

To display URLs in messages, make sure that you have the Suppress links setting in your TalkJS dashboard turned off.

Unformatted URLs are always clickable in all messages:

Text	Result
`More info on https://example.com`	More info on https://example.com

You can also add clickable linked text with <..|..> formatting. Place the URL you want to link to before the | character, and the linked text after the | character, as follows:

<https://example.com|Read more> becomes: Read more.
<mailto:[email protected]|Email us> becomes: Email us.

All URLs must be absolute.

Note that the clickable text syntax only works with messages sent with the REST API, not with messages sent from the chat UI.