Whatsapp For iOS, Android: How To Add Bold, Italics and Strikethrough formatting Options

Soon after WhatsApp announced that it introduced text formatting tools for Android beta, the features are now available for users running version 2.12.17 on iOS and version 2.12.535 for Android.

A report by Telegraph explains that once WhatsApp is updated, you add asterisks to either side of your text, e.g. *hello* to format your text into bold. To italicise, add underscores either side, e.g. _hello_ and to strike through text, add tildes either side, e.g. ~tilde~. One can also combine the new formats, such as _*bolditalics*_. For now this is not a feature per se but more like a temporary workaround. Moreover, it works cross platform, only if your friend has the above mentioned versions of WhatsApp installed on their smartphones.

Recently, WhatsApp also released an update which would display a progress percentage whenever an automatic local backup is in motion. However, the pop-up still blocks everything but it at least displays the percentage, so that one has a fair idea of how much time one will have to wait before the app is usable again. Another small change is the the phone number no longer shows up front and centre in the new Settings screen. The new profile section will only show the photo, name, and status, but not the phone number.

Along with this change, some new improvements have been made to the WhatsApp document file sharing feature too. One can now share a document through Google Drive. A report by points out that users can select a PDF, Word file or PowerPoint presentation file from Google Drive. Although, all of the files will be automatically converted to PDF format before sending it to other users.