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LinkedIn Text Formatter

Turn plain text into bold, italic, monospace or small capital Unicode letters to paste into a LinkedIn post.

What this tool does

Turn plain text into bold, italic, monospace or small capital Unicode letters to paste into a LinkedIn post. You fill in these fields: Text and Style. It shows styled text, characters changed, and characters left as typed.

Inputs

  • Text: Longer text, up to 5000 characters. Any character the style has no form for is kept as typed.
  • Style: Choose one: Bold, Italic, Monospace, Small caps. Starts as Bold.

How to use

  1. Type the text.
  2. Choose Bold, Italic, Monospace, or Small caps for "Style".
  3. Read the result: styled text, characters changed, and characters left as typed. It appears once every required field has a valid value.
  4. Use the copy button to copy the text.

Worked examples

Example 1. Inputs:

  • Text: "Hello 42"
  • Style: Bold

Results:

  • Characters changed: 7
  • Characters left as typed: 1

How this is worked out: Mathematical bold: A starts at U+1D400, a at U+1D41A, 0 at U+1D7CE. H is letter 8 (offset 7): U+1D407. e offset 4: U+1D41E. l offset 11: U+1D425 (twice). o offset 14: U+1D428. 4 -> U+1D7D2, 2 -> U+1D7D0. The space is kept. Bold: H e l l o 4 2 = 7, kept: 1.

Example 2. Inputs:

  • Text: "Hello"
  • Style: Italic

Results:

  • Characters changed: 5
  • Characters left as typed: 0

How this is worked out: Mathematical italic capital A is U+1D434 and small a is U+1D44E. H is the 8th letter so U+1D434+7 = U+1D43B. e is a+4 = U+1D452, l is a+11 = U+1D459, o is a+14 = U+1D45C. Five letters, all changed.

Example 3. Inputs:

  • Text: "h 1"
  • Style: Italic

Results:

  • Characters changed: 1
  • Characters left as typed: 2

How this is worked out: The italic small h slot U+1D455 is reserved, so Unicode uses U+210E (PLANCK CONSTANT). The space and the digit 1 have no italic form (no italic digits exist), so 1 changed and 2 kept out of 3 characters.

Example 4. Inputs:

  • Text: "a-b"
  • Style: Monospace

Results:

  • Characters changed: 2
  • Characters left as typed: 1

How this is worked out: Monospace small a is U+1D68A and b is U+1D68B. The hyphen has no monospace form and is kept: 2 changed, 1 kept of 3 characters.

Where this comes from

Restyle text with look-alike Unicode letters. Each character the chosen style has a Unicode form for is replaced by that form. Every other character is kept as typed. Two counts are returned: characters changed and characters kept. Source: The Unicode Standard code charts: Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols (U+1D400 block), Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms (U+FF00 block), Enclosed Alphanumerics (U+2460 block), and the small capital letters of the IPA Extensions, Phonetic Extensions and Latin Extended-D blocks.

Limitations

  • Only characters the style has a Unicode form for are changed. Everything else, including accented letters, other alphabets and emoji, is kept as typed.
  • The two counts are of Unicode characters, so an emoji built from several joined characters, or a letter typed with a separate accent mark, counts as more than one.
  • Some apps, fonts and screen readers do not handle these characters well, so avoid them for anything that must be accessible or searchable.
  • Only one bold style (serif) is produced.
  • The italic style uses mathematical italic letters, not script or cursive styles.
  • Some fonts lack a few small capital characters, such as the small capital q, and show a box instead.
  • Text longer than 5,000 characters is not accepted.

FAQs

Q: Are these real fonts?
A: No. Each styled character is a separate Unicode character that looks like a styled letter, so the look stays when you copy and paste the text. No formatting is attached to it.
Q: Why did some characters stay as typed?
A: A style has a styled form for only some characters. Any character it has none for, such as an accented letter, an emoji or a line break, is copied as typed. The two counts show how many characters were changed and how many were kept.
Q: Are line breaks kept?
A: Yes. A line break is copied exactly as you typed it and counts as a character left as typed.
Q: Will it display everywhere?
A: Most current phones and computers show these characters. Some apps and older fonts show empty boxes instead, and a font may draw them differently from another.
Q: Will screen readers and search understand it?
A: Often not. Screen readers may read the styled characters out one symbol at a time, and search engines may not match them to the plain words, so avoid them for anything people need to hear or find.
Q: Can I turn the styled text back into plain text?
A: Not with this tool. Each styled character is a different Unicode character from the plain one, so you would need to type the plain text again.
Q: Which characters does the bold style change?
A: The plain letters A to Z, a to z and the digits 0 to 9. Spaces, punctuation, accented letters and emoji are copied as typed.
Q: Which characters does the italic style change?
A: Unicode has italic forms only for the letters A to Z and a to z. Digits, punctuation, spaces and accented letters are kept as you typed them.
Q: Is the lowercase italic h different?
A: The italic h uses the Planck constant sign, because the matching slot in the mathematical italic block is reserved. It looks the same as the other italic letters in most fonts.
Q: Which characters does the monospace style change?
A: The unaccented letters A to Z and a to z and the digits 0 to 9, which take a form that looks like typewriter lettering. Accented letters, punctuation, spaces and emoji are kept as typed.
Q: Which characters does the small caps style change?
A: Lowercase letters only: capitals stay as typed, and so does x because Unicode has no small capital x.

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