The Bot API supports basic formatting for messages. You can use bold, italic, underlined, strikethrough, spoiler text, block quotations as well as inline links and pre-formatted code in your bots' messages. Telegram clients will render them accordingly. You can specify text entities directly, or use markdown-style or HTML-style formatting.

Note that Telegram clients will display an*alert** to the user before opening an inline link ('Open this link?' together with the full URL).

Message entities can be nested, providing following restrictions are met:

• If two entities have common characters, then one of them is fully contained inside another.
• bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and spoiler entities can contain and can be part of any other entities, except pre and code.
• blockquote and expandable_blockquote entities can't be nested.
• All other entities can't contain each other.

Links tg://user?id=<user_id> can be used to mention a user by their identifier without using a username. Please note:

• These links will work only if they are used inside an inline link or in an inline keyboard button. For example, they will not work, when used in a message text.
• Unless the user is a member of the chat where they were mentioned, these mentions are only guaranteed to work if the user has contacted the bot in private in the past or has sent a callback query to the bot via an inline button and doesn't have Forwarded Messages privacy enabled for the bot.

You can find the list of programming and markup languages for which syntax highlighting is supported at libprisma#supported-languages.

MarkdownV2 style

To use this mode, passMarkdownV2* in the parse_mode field. Use the following syntax in your message:

bold \*text*
_italic \text_
__underline__
~strikethrough~
||spoiler||
bold _italic bold ~italic bold strikethrough ||italic bold strikethrough spoiler||~ __underline italic bold___ bold*
[inline URL](http://www.example.com/)
[inline mention of a user](tg://user?id=123456789)
![👍](tg://emoji?id=5368324170671202286)
`inline fixed-width code`
`​`​`
pre-formatted fixed-width code block
`​`​`
`​`​`python
pre-formatted fixed-width code block written in the Python programming language
`​`​`
>Block quotation started
>Block quotation continued
>Block quotation continued
>Block quotation continued
>The last line of the block quotation
**>The second expandable block quotation started right after the previous
>It is separated from the previous block quotation by an empty bold entity
>Expandable block quotation continued
>Hidden by default part of the expandable block quotation started
>Expandable block quotation continued
>The last line of the expandable block quotation with the expandability mark||

Please note:

• Any character with code between 1 and 126 inclusively can be escaped anywhere with a preceding '' character, in which case it is treated as an ordinary character and not a part of the markup. This implies that '' character usually must be escaped with a preceding '' character.
• Inside pre and code entities, all '`' and '' characters must be escaped with a preceding '' character.
• Inside the (...) part of the inline link and custom emoji definition, all ')' and '' must be escaped with a preceding '' character.
• In all other places characters '_', '', '[', ']', '(', ')', '~', '`', '>', '#', '+', '-', '=', '|', '{', '}', '.', '!' must be escaped with the preceding character ''.
• In case of ambiguity between italic and underline entities __ is always greadily treated from left to right as beginning or end of an underline entity, so instead of ___italic underline___ use ___italic underline_*__, adding an empty bold entity as a separator.
• A valid emoji must be provided as an alternative value for the custom emoji. The emoji will be shown instead of the custom emoji in places where a custom emoji cannot be displayed (e.g., system notifications) or if the message is forwarded by a non-premium user. It is recommended to use the emoji from the emoji field of the custom emoji sticker.
• Custom emoji entities can only be used by bots that purchased additional usernames on Fragment.

HTML style

To use this mode, passHTML* in the parse_mode field. The following tags are currently supported:

<b>bold</b>, <strong>bold</strong>
<i>italic</i>, <em>italic</em>
<u>underline</u>, <ins>underline</ins>
<s>strikethrough</s>, <strike>strikethrough</strike>, <del>strikethrough</del>
<span class="tg-spoiler">spoiler</span>, <tg-spoiler>spoiler</tg-spoiler>
<b>bold <i>italic bold <s>italic bold strikethrough <span class="tg-spoiler">italic bold strikethrough spoiler</span></s> <u>underline italic bold</u></i> bold</b>
<a href="http://www.example.com/">inline URL</a>
<a href="tg://user?id=123456789">inline mention of a user</a>
<tg-emoji emoji-id="5368324170671202286">👍</tg-emoji>
<code>inline fixed-width code</code>
<pre>pre-formatted fixed-width code block</pre>
<pre><code class="language-python">pre-formatted fixed-width code block written in the Python programming language</code></pre>
<blockquote>Block quotation started\nBlock quotation continued\nThe last line of the block quotation</blockquote>
<blockquote expandable>Expandable block quotation started\nExpandable block quotation continued\nExpandable block quotation continued\nHidden by default part of the block quotation started\nExpandable block quotation continued\nThe last line of the block quotation</blockquote>

Please note:

• Only the tags mentioned above are currently supported.
• All <, > and & symbols that are not a part of a tag or an HTML entity must be replaced with the corresponding HTML entities (< with <, > with > and & with &).
• All numerical HTML entities are supported.
• The API currently supports only the following named HTML entities: <, >, & and ".
• Use nested pre and code tags, to define programming language for pre entity.
• Programming language can't be specified for standalone code tags.
• A valid emoji must be used as the content of the tg-emoji tag. The emoji will be shown instead of the custom emoji in places where a custom emoji cannot be displayed (e.g., system notifications) or if the message is forwarded by a non-premium user. It is recommended to use the emoji from the emoji field of the custom emoji sticker.
• Custom emoji entities can only be used by bots that purchased additional usernames on Fragment.

Markdown style

This is a legacy mode, retained for backward compatibility. To use this mode, passMarkdown* in the parse_mode field. Use the following syntax in your message:

bold text*
_italic text_
[inline URL](http://www.example.com/)
[inline mention of a user](tg://user?id=123456789)
`inline fixed-width code`
`​`​`
pre-formatted fixed-width code block
`​`​`
`​`​`python
pre-formatted fixed-width code block written in the Python programming language
`​`​`

Please note:

• Entities must not be nested, use parse mode MarkdownV2 instead.
• There is no way to specify “underline”, “strikethrough”, “spoiler”, “blockquote”, “expandable_blockquote” and “custom_emoji” entities, use parse mode MarkdownV2 instead.
• To escape characters '_', '', '`', '[' outside of an entity, prepend the characters '' before them.
• Escaping inside entities is not allowed, so entity must be closed first and reopened again: use _snake_\__case_ for italic snake_case and 2*\**2=4* for bold 2*2=4.