Tutorials · I · Styling
Bold, italic and fonts
Make words bold or italic in an Instagram caption, or set the whole caption in a different font. It takes a selection and one tap.
Step 1Write your caption
Open the app and type in the top box, or paste text you already have. This box is the editor. The box underneath, Output, shows what you will paste into Instagram.
Step 2Select the words to change
Drag across the words with your mouse. On a phone, press and hold a word, then drag the handles. Only the selected words will change.
If nothing is selected, your choice applies to what you type next.
Step 3Tap B for bold, I for italic
The B and I buttons are in the bar above the editor. Tap once to turn a style on, again to turn it off. On a keyboard, Ctrl + B and Ctrl + I do the same (⌘ on a Mac).
The Output box changes straight away. Those bold letters are ordinary characters that look bold, which is why they survive being pasted.
Step 4Pick a font from the menu
Tap the font button (it shows the current font, Serif to begin with). The menu lists the four everyday fonts: Serif, Sans-Serif, Script and Gothic. Fonts you used recently appear under Recent.
Step 5Open More fonts to see them all
Choose More fonts… at the bottom of the menu. A panel slides in from the left with all 319 fonts. If you had text selected, each row shows your words in that font.
- Style narrows the list by look: Classic, Script, Gothic, Outline, Boxed, Small, Marked, Lookalike, or the last ten you used.
- Has keeps only fonts that come with bold, italic, or both.
Tap a font to use it. The panel closes by itself.
Step 6Copy and paste
Tap Copy above the Output box, then paste into your caption on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or anywhere else that takes plain text.
Good to know
- Bold exists in four fonts: Serif, Sans-Serif, Script and Gothic. Italic exists in Serif and Sans-Serif. In any other font the B and I buttons go grey.
- If you switch bold text to a font that has no bold, the bold is removed and a short message tells you.
- Some decorative fonts have no digits or no capital letters. Those characters stay plain. The Output box always shows exactly what you will get.
- Screen readers often read fancy fonts badly or skip them. Keep the important words in the plain font.
- To compare every font with your own words at once, see all the fonts on one page.