Lesson 3 of 12 · Beginner
Emphasis in three marks
Bold for weight, italic for tone, both when a word carries the sentence.
In this lesson you will learn bold and italic syntax, how to combine them, and when an asterisk needs escaping instead of emphasis.
Syntax
**bold** and *italic* and ***both***That renders as bold and italic and both. Underscores work the same way (__bold__, _italic_), but asterisks are the common convention — pick one style per note and stay with it.
A real example
The deploy is **blocked** until the migration finishes.
*Do not* merge before the review — the ***rollback plan*** is not ready.When emphasis misfires
- Mixed markers —
**bold*never closes, so it renders literally. Open and close with the same count. - Emphasis across a line break — keep the marks on one line; most renderers will not emphasize text that spans paragraphs.
- Literal asterisks — a rating like
3 * 5 starscan accidentally emphasize. Escape the mark (\*) when you mean the character itself; the full rules live in Escaping characters.
Styling restraint is a feature: if every other word is bold, nothing stands out. Reserve bold for the decision, the date, or the warning — the three things a skimmer must not miss.
Exercise
The launch is scheduled for Friday.
Review the rollback plan before noon.
Emphasize it: make the day bold, the deadline italic, and the plan name both — then read it back in Preview.
New to Typehall? Edit the Markdown in the new note, then choose Preview to see the rendered result, or Split to edit and preview at the same time. How the Markdown editor works. Tip: Split works especially well with Focus enabled, giving the editor and rendered preview more room.
Structure for sequences comes next: Lists.
Learn Markdown course index — all 12 lessons in order.