How to bold text in a LinkedIn post, step by step
- Write the post in the formatter Open the free LinkedIn post formatter on your computer or in your phone’s browser, and type or paste your post. No account needed.
- Select the words and press B Select only what should stand out and press B. On a computer, Ctrl/⌘+B works too. I gives italics, and both together give bold italic.
- Check where LinkedIn cuts it The preview shows your post on desktop and mobile and marks where LinkedIn hides the rest behind “…more”. Make sure the bold words you care about sit above that line.
- Copy and paste it into LinkedIn Press Copy text, go to LinkedIn, click Start a post and paste. The bold comes with it. To fix an old post, edit it and paste the new text over the old.
Where bold works on LinkedIn
The copy-and-paste method works in almost every text box on LinkedIn, because the bold letters are characters, not formatting. Where LinkedIn does give you real formatting, use that instead.
Bold text on LinkedIn, place by place
| Place | Bold? | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Posts | Paste it in | Bold the hook’s key words or the labels of a long post |
| Comments | Paste it in | One phrase at most; a bold comment reads as shouting |
| Headline | Paste it in | Recruiters search headlines. Keep job titles and skills plain |
| About and Experience | Paste it in | Bold short section labels so the text is easy to scan |
| Messages | Paste it in | Fine for a heading; test on the other person’s phone if it matters |
| Articles and newsletters | Built in | The editor has real formatting. Use it, not Unicode |
| Your name and hashtags | Keep plain | Styled letters are different characters, so search and hashtags break |
From AuthoredUp (updated 8 July 2026) and Ordinal (December 2025).
Real bold: LinkedIn articles and newsletters
Posts are plain text, but LinkedIn articles and newsletters are not. Their editor has a formatting toolbar with bold, italics and headings, as AuthoredUp describes it, so there you select the words and pick bold like in any word processor. LinkedIn’s own guide to writing and publishing articles covers how to start one.
That real bold is better than the Unicode kind: search reads it, screen readers read it, and it looks the same on every device. So if your text is long enough to need headings, it may belong in an article, with a short post that points to it.
Why the bold trick works, and what it costs
AuthoredUp puts it plainly: LinkedIn’s standard post editor has no formatting toolbar, no bold button and no Ctrl+B. The bold you see in other people’s posts is made of characters.
Unicode, the standard every phone and computer uses for text, has a block called Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols: full alphabets in bold, italic and other styles, made for maths. The bold sans-serif set includes the digits too, so “𝟯 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀” comes out bold from end to end. A formatter swaps your letters for those characters, and since they’re text, they paste anywhere.
Three costs come with it:
- Search doesn’t match them. LinkedIn’s search treats bold characters as different from plain ones, so a bold skill or job title won’t be found.
- Screen readers may spell them out. Some read styled letters one by one, or skip them. That’s why bold belongs on a few words, never on a whole post.
- Old devices may show boxes. A phone or app without the right font shows empty boxes or question marks instead of letters, as Ordinal notes.
What about reach? AuthoredUp found no evidence that bold text affects LinkedIn’s algorithm, in either direction. Use it for the reader, not for the feed.
How to use bold so people keep reading
What to bold in a LinkedIn post
| Bold it | Keep it plain | |
|---|---|---|
| In the hook | The result or the surprise, in a few words | The whole first sentence |
| In a long post | Short labels: “The problem:”, “The lesson:” | Full paragraphs |
| About you | A label in your About section | Your name, job titles and skills |
| At the end | The question you want answered, if it’s short | Hashtags and links |
- One bold phrase per screen. On a phone, a screen of text holds a few lines. If two things are bold there, neither stands out.
- Put it above “…more”. LinkedIn shows only the start of a post before it cuts it: about 210 characters of a text post on a computer, and three lines when the post has a picture. A bold word below the cut only helps the people who already clicked.
- Mix with white space, not with more styles. Short paragraphs and empty lines do more for reading than bold, italic and underline together.
- Read it on your phone first. Most of your readers will. The formatter’s mobile preview shows it before you post.
For the first line itself, our guide to LinkedIn post hooks has openings that work with or without bold.
Bold in your carousel caption, in aiCarousels
When you make a LinkedIn carousel in aiCarousels, you write the words people read above the slides in Caption mode, next to Design. Its toolbar has Bold and Italic (the tooltip says “Bold (shows on LinkedIn)”), lists, emoji and a character count, and a dashed line shows where LinkedIn cuts the caption with “…more”. A live preview shows the post on desktop or phone, light or dark. Bold works on the letters A to Z and numbers; accented letters stay as they are. When it reads right, post the carousel and its caption to your LinkedIn profile from the editor.
Bold not working on LinkedIn? Quick fixes
What went wrong, and the fix
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Ctrl+B does nothing | The post box has no formatting | Format in the formatter, then paste |
| It pasted as normal text | The plain text was copied | Use Copy text in the formatter, then paste again |
| Boxes or question marks | That device lacks the font | Nothing to fix on your side; current phones show it |
| Some letters aren’t bold | Only A to Z and 0 to 9 have bold forms | Expected for other alphabets; rephrase if it looks odd |
| Your post can’t be found by a word | Search reads plain letters only | Keep keywords, names and hashtags unbolded |
Bold in a real LinkedIn post
Three bold words open the post, the rest stays plain, and a short carousel makes the same point slide by slide.
Italics and other styles on LinkedIn
The same LinkedIn post formatter does italics with I, underline with U and strikethrough with S, with the same rules: a few words, nothing people search for. To check how your whole post looks in the feed, with images or a document, use the LinkedIn post preview. Writing on X too? See how to italicize on Twitter (X). For more on LinkedIn posts, see our LinkedIn formatting and posting guides.
Want the words written for you? A LinkedIn text post in aiCarousels drafts the post with your ghostwriter, with Bold and Italic in its editor.
