This post discusses Teams Chat’s often underutilized but precious feature – the text formatting toolbar. This feature lets you make your messages more expressive and clear, with options to bold, italicize, and underline text, create bulleted or numbered lists, and much more. Let’s look at how to use the text formatting toolbar on desktop and mobile platforms, along with some valuable tips and tricks.
Using the Text Formatting Toolbar on Desktop:
Step 1: Open Microsoft Teams and navigate to the chat where you want to send a message.
Step 2: Click the “Format” button below the text box where you type your message. This button looks like an ‘A’ with a paintbrush.
Step 3: The text formatting toolbar will open above the text box. Here, you’ll find options to bold, italicize, underline, strike-through, highlight, and change the colour of your text. You can also adjust the alignment of your text, create bulleted or numbered lists, insert a link, or clear all formatting.
Step 4: Write your message in the text box, using the toolbar to format your text as needed. Once finished, press ‘Enter’ to send your message.
Using the Text Formatting Toolbar on Mobile:
As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, the mobile version of Microsoft Teams does not offer a full-text formatting toolbar like the desktop version. However, you can still use basic formatting in your messages by following these steps:
Step 1: Open the Microsoft Teams app and navigate to the chat where you want to send a message.
Step 2: In the text box, you can use markdown language to format your text. Here are a few examples:
- To italicize text, wrap it in asterisks like so: italicized text
- To bold text, wrap it in double asterisks like so: bold text
- To create a
strikethrough, wrap the text in tildes like so:strikethrough text
Step 3: Tap the ‘Send’ button once you’ve written and formatted your message.
Extra Tips and Tricks:
- Quoting Text: You can quote text in your messages by clicking the ‘Quote’ button in the text formatting toolbar on the desktop. This is especially useful when responding to a specific part of a previous message.
- Using Headings: The text formatting toolbar also allows you to create headings (H1, H2, and H3) to structure your messages better, especially when sending lengthy or detailed information.
- Inserting Code Snippets: Use the ‘Code’ button in the toolbar if you share code. This will format your text as a code snippet, maintaining the proper formatting and making it more readable.
- Adding Emojis, GIFs, and Stickers: You can also add emojis, GIFs, and stickers to your messages to make them more engaging and expressive.
- Keyboard Shortcuts: If you prefer keyboard shortcuts, you can bold text with Ctrl + B, italicize with Ctrl + I, and underline with Ctrl + U on Windows (or Command + B, Command + I, and Command + U on Mac).
By mastering the text formatting toolbar, you can make your messages in Microsoft Teams more structured, clear, and impactful. Happy formatting!