Bold text in plain text e-mail?

Question

Is it possible to bold some text when sending a plain text email via PHP? Saw something that you could use

*bold*

But it doesn't seem to be working...

Plain text means plain text - no formatting. Whether the email client renders `*text*` bold or not is not under your control. — Mat, Jan 21 '12 at 16:37
Don't listen to the other guys, plain text certainly DOES have bold, its just that they call it upper case. — Mark Robbins, Jan 21 '12 at 16:40
Uppercase is LIKE SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS vs bold which is **emphasizing a point** :) — CommandZ, Mar 11 '14 at 19:05
You do something like this if the definition of "plain text" du jour includes Unicode (that was done with HTML or markdown, any more than or or ). But that's cheating. — TextGeek, Aug 31 '18 at 15:40
This question shouldn't have been closed as it is very clear for someone who knows how emails are working. — István Ujj-Mészáros, Sep 15 '20 at 23:40
@TextGeek "cheating" demonstrated: https://stackoverflow.com/a/70569635/540955 — myf, Jan 03 '22 at 17:58

Jere · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-21T16:42:14.700

13

Nope. Plain text is plain text.

You maybe thinking of a framework like markdown (which is what stackoverflow uses) to compile something like ** text ** into:

<strong>text</strong>

Like so: text. But the result would have to be HTML.

edited Jan 21 '12 at 16:42

answered Jan 21 '12 at 16:36

Jere

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WoLfulus · Answer 2 · 2018-07-29T19:37:28.840

3

The only way to get this working is if your email client supports this type of format since plain text is just... well, text. You can even write in BBcode if your email client supports it. Of course that if you write something for someone using this "super client", the receiver will only be able to see the formatting if they also have the client installed.

edited Jul 29 '18 at 19:37

answered Jan 21 '12 at 16:44

WoLfulus

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Bold text in plain text e-mail?

2 Answers2

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