# Cannot make text bold in the middle of a word with asterisks
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183 "2014-12-16T16:11:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JazzyJosh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JazzyJosh)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/1 "2014-12-16T16:11:52Z")
That’s Num **ber** wang
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/2 "2014-12-16T18:57:37Z")
this is not a bug. you may want to acquaint yourself with markdown: [Daring Fireball: Markdown Syntax Documentation](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax)
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### Author:  [@locallunatic](https://meta.discourse.org/u/locallunatic)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/3 "2014-12-16T19:51:35Z")
The problem is that the little editor thingy uses markdown. For example:
This is a de **mon** stration where I highlighted “mon” in that word and hit the bold button in the editor.
To do that properly you can use HTML like so:
This is a de **mon** stration where I bolded “mon” in that word using HTML.
As the broken one is how markdown is supposed to work the formatting buttons should not use markdown when they are inserting said formatting.
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### Author:  [@jaming](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jaming)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/4 "2014-12-16T19:56:26Z")
I think that is how markdown is supposed to work. From the link @tobiaseigen posted:
[Quote]Emphasis can be used in the middle of a word:
un_frigging_believable
[/Quote]
[Source](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#em)
And see: [John MacFarlane - babelmark 2](http://johnmacfarlane.net/babelmark2/?normalize=1&text=Num **ber** wang)
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### Author:  [@locallunatic](https://meta.discourse.org/u/locallunatic)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/5 "2014-12-16T20:05:39Z")
OK, I’d not looked at the mess that is markdown so it is supposed to muck with things in the middle of words. If that gets fixed then I guess using markdown in from the editor’s buttons would work. Once they fix it that is.
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### Author:  [@JazzyJosh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JazzyJosh)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/6 "2014-12-16T21:05:04Z")
You mean the part that says
> Emphasis can be used in the middle of a word:
EDIT: Just realized someone else brought this point up. Sorry for the additional post.
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [16 בדצמבר, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/7 "2014-12-16T21:27:22Z")
@codinghorror has blogged about markdown at [The Future of Markdown](http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-future-of-markdown/) - a worthwhile read.
I think discourse is encouraging people to join the discussions at [http://commonmark.org](http://commonmark.org) on improving markdown and making it more consistent for everyone, including discourse.
The commonmark spec [CommonMark Spec](http://spec.commonmark.org/0.13/) actually describes “intraword emphasis” which is what @JazzyJosh is complaining does not work in discourse now, so maybe this is indeed a bug.
Personally I don’t see intraword emphasis as much of a priority, and I also don’t see the toolbar in the editor as much more than a guide. I always end up manually tweaking the markdown it generates.. which I think is how it’s supposed to be used.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [17 בדצמבר, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/8 "2014-12-17T01:36:52Z")
Not a bug, by design. Intra-word emphasis is generally unwanted so we disable it.
Read this old blog post to learn why:
> **[Three Markdown Gotchas - Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.blog/2008/06/25/three-markdown-gotcha/)**
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [17 בדצמבר, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/9 "2014-12-17T01:45:04Z")
It works if you use $.
Here is my test$ **unbelievable** $but it works.
Works with italic too
Here is my test$_unbelievable_$but it works.
So it seems the boundary detection doesn’t apply to symbols.
Oooh, found a way to use a non-visible character to do it 😄
test� **bold** �Iknow
`test **bold** Iknow`
**Edit:**
I only know this because we run into this “workaround” on our instance when people don’t properly surround their code blocks with backticks or indent them with 4 spaces.
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### Author:  [@sampletestguy](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sampletestguy)
#### Post date: [17 בדצמבר, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/10 "2014-12-17T02:40:33Z")
You can also use HTML tags if you really need intra word.
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### Author:  [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi)
#### Post date: [4 בדצמבר, 2025, 11:33am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-make-text-bold-in-the-middle-of-a-word-with-asterisks/23183/11 "2025-12-04T11:33:25Z")