Although Discourse doesn’t attempt to compete with layout software, it does let you format your posts in many ways. If you’re familiar with Markdown, BBCode, or HTML, you can use those markup languages. More simply, at the top of the composition pane is a toolbar with buttons for the most common formatting options. From left to right, they are:
- Quote whole post: Don’t use this—everyone can scroll up to see the original post.
- Bold: Makes the selected text bold.
- Italic: Makes the selected text italic.
- Hyperlink: Turns the selected text into a link using the URL you paste in.
- Blockquote: Highlights and indents the selected text to indicate that it’s a quote.
- Preformatted: Formats the text with a monospaced font so columns line up—it’s useful mostly for tabular information.
- Upload: Click to select an image or file for inserting into the post. It’s easier to drag the image or file in from your desktop.
- Bulleted List: Prefixes each item in the list with an automatic bullet character.
- Numbered List: Numbers the items in the list automatically.
- Emoji: Click to see a collection of emoji to insert.
- Date/Time: Click to insert a date/time token that readers can click to see the time in other time zones.
- Gear: The gear icon contains two special options: Hide Details and Build Poll. The first option lets you hide text inside a flippy triangle. The second lets you create simple single choice, multiple choice, and number rating polls.