LinkedIn text formatter: bold, italic and bullets for your posts

Why it matters: LinkedIn has no bold or italic button in a normal post. A wall of plain text gets scrolled past, and a job post that hides the pay and the location below the fold gets fewer applicants. This formatter turns the words you pick into bold, italic or underlined characters that LinkedIn displays as styled text, adds clean bullet lists and shows you what readers see before they tap “see more”.

How do you make text bold on LinkedIn?

1. Type or paste your post into the box above.
2. Select the words you want to stand out and tap B. Ctrl+B (Cmd+B on a Mac) works too.
3. Select a few lines and tap a list button to turn them into bullets, ticks, arrows or a numbered list.
4. Check the Desktop and Phone previews, then tap Copy formatted post and paste it into LinkedIn.

Which styles work in a LinkedIn post?

We kept to the styles that read cleanly in a work feed. Script, gothic and outlined letters exist too, but they are hard to read and look out of place in a job post.

How much of a LinkedIn post shows before “see more”?

Roughly the first 210 characters on desktop and about 140 on a phone, or the first three lines if those come first, according to this see more test. A post can run to 3,000 characters, per AuthoredUp’s limits list, but most readers decide from the opening lines. Put the role, the place and the pay in the first two lines of a job post; the counter under the box shows how many characters make the cut.

Do styled letters count as more characters?

Yes. Each bold, italic or typewriter letter is a special Unicode character that most text boxes count as two, and so are most emoji. The counter counts them the same way, so a heavily styled post reaches the 3,000 limit sooner than the word count suggests.

When should you not use bold text?

Styled letters are not real formatting. Screen readers read them one letter at a time or skip them, and LinkedIn search does not match them, so a job title written in bold may not be found by someone searching for that title. Keep bold to a handful of words, never style a whole post, and leave job titles and skills you want found in plain text.

Frequently asked questions

Does bold text work in LinkedIn comments and messages?

Yes. The characters copy into posts, comments, messages and your About section. Your headline is the one place to avoid it, because headline words should stay searchable.

Will the formatting show on phones?

On nearly all current phones and browsers, yes. A few very old devices show empty boxes for these characters, which is another reason to style only a few words.

How do I remove the formatting?

Select the styled words and tap Clear style. Tapping the same style button twice also turns it off.

Is my post saved anywhere?

Only on your own device, so a refresh does not lose your draft. Nothing is sent to Work Insiders or anyone else. Tap Clear when you are done on a shared computer.

More for your LinkedIn: write a better headline with the LinkedIn headline generator, check a connection note with the LinkedIn message checker, compare personal brand tools, or browse all our free tools.