Italic Text on Facebook: Copy, Paste and Use It Well

Bold shouts; italics lean in and lower their voice. On Facebook, that quieter emphasis is handy for a book or film title, a sarcastic aside, a quote from someone else, or a single word you want read with a little extra weight. The catch is that ordinary posts and comments have no italic button, so the slant has to come from the characters themselves.

What Unicode italics are

Unicode includes complete sets of italic letters, originally meant for writing math. Type just saying into a generator and you get 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 or 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔. Each slanted letter is a separate character, which is why Facebook keeps it exactly as pasted. It is text, not formatting, so it also survives being copied into Messenger, a group chat or a caption.

How to add italics to a post or comment

1. Type your phrase into the box on our generator. Every style updates as you type.
2. Scroll to the italic styles and compare them. Tap a style card if you want to see it inside a mock post.
3. Press Copy on the one you like.
4. In Facebook, paste the italic words into your post or comment, then type the rest normally.
5. Read the post once on your phone before publishing, since italics are easier to misread on a small screen.

The same paste works in most Facebook text boxes that accept plain text: photo captions, group posts, replies and Messenger chats. Your profile name is the exception. Facebook checks names against its naming rules, and a styled name is also harder for friends to find, so keep that one plain.

Which italic should you pick?

• Italic sans (𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘥𝘭𝘺) is clean and blends in with ordinary text. A good default.
• Italic serif (𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦) looks bookish. It suits titles and quotes.
• Bold italic (𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙮𝙤𝙪) is the loudest of the three. Use it when plain italics feel too faint.

The full set, including alternating and mixed versions, lives on the bold and italic page.

Good uses for italics

Titles are the classic case: currently reading 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘎𝘢𝘵𝘴𝘣𝘺. Italics also carry tone. A comment that ends with 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 reads as a wink rather than a lecture. In a group post, you might italicize a short quote from the rules or a line someone else wrote, so readers can tell whose words they are.

Accented letters keep their marks in italic styles too, so a place name like Hà Nội comes out as 𝐻𝑎̀ 𝑁𝑜̣̂𝑖. The letter đ is the one exception; it has no italic form and stays upright.

Where italics fall short

• They are subtle. In a long post, a slanted phrase can go unnoticed, so don’t rely on italics alone for anything crucial.
• Screen readers may spell styled letters out or skip them. Keep names, dates and links in plain text.
• Facebook search, and search engines, may not match italic words with their plain spelling.
• A few devices may show an empty box for a letter their fonts can’t draw.

One italic phrase per post is usually enough. If everything leans, nothing stands out. Type only the words you want slanted, copy them, and write the rest of the sentence in normal text.