Whatsapp Allows Text Formatting

WhatsApp Allows Text Formatting - Bold and Italics

The latest version of WhatsApp for Android,

which you can download from the source link

below, allows basic text formatting - bold and

italics. For those who love to decorate their text

on messenger, this could be a big deal. If you

want to bold any text in your message, simply

surround it with asterisks. For example, text

written as "I'm the *greatest*", will be displayed

as "I'm the greatest". If you want to italicize any

text, wrap it with underscores. That is "I'm the

_greatest_" would display as "I'm the greatest".

The nice thing about the new text formatting is

that the decorated text retains its formatting on

the notification panel as well. Other common

effects such as strikethrough and coloring the

text aren't available yet. FWIW, the sender name

will now appear bolded on the notification panel.

One more noticeable improvement the new

version of WhatsApp brings is in the document

send feature. The feature was made available a

few weeks ago as "Browse other docs". Choosing

this option will now allow you to access

documents stored in your Google Drive or

Microsoft OneDrive as well. The support for the

file format includes Word docs, Excel

spreadsheets and Power Point presentations

along with regular PDFs.

WhatsApp also brings some nice improvements

on the Chat Backup feature. The sync process

now shows a progress bar that gives you an idea

of the time remaining for the rest of the process.

Unfortunately WhatsApp won't let you use the

messaging feature while the backup process is in

progress. We expect improvements on this front

in coming days.

It's not clear how long will WhatsApp take to roll

out this feature on the main version. It may take

a few more months before we see it. You may

remember that the Google Drive backup feature

was leaked several months ago before it was

actually included in the main version.

If you wish to get access to the beta version of

WhatsApp, you'll have to sign up for the beta

program on Google Play. Those who want to test

the feature may upgrade their WhatsApp (for

Android) to 2.12.535 or higher from the official

website: WhatsApp for Android

We'd like to know from our fellow engineers their

opinion about the new features in WhatsApp. Do

you think text decoration is necessary? How

many of you plan to use the feature? What other

text formatting features do you wish to see in

WhatsApp? Let us know.