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How to Make Text Bold in Confluence (Ctrl+B, Toolbar & Markdown)

· 3 min read
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Bold text is one of the most common formatting actions in Confluence — for headings, callouts, and emphasis inside paragraphs. There are two ways to do it: the toolbar button / keyboard shortcut in the standard editor, and Markdown syntax inside Enhanced Markdown for Confluence. This guide covers both, plus the common "why isn't it working" cases.

What you'll learn
  1. The standard editor method — B button or Ctrl+B / Cmd+B
  2. The Markdown method — **bold** syntax
  3. Bold vs italic vs strikethrough
  4. Fixing bold that renders as literal asterisks

Method 1: The toolbar button or keyboard shortcut (standard editor)​

The quickest way:

  1. Select the text you want to bold.
  2. Press Ctrl+B (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+B (Mac), or click the B button in the editor toolbar.

The selection is wrapped in bold immediately. Press Ctrl+B again to remove it.

This works everywhere in the standard editor: body text, table cells, and headings. The keyboard shortcut is the fastest option if you're already typing — select the word and hit Ctrl+B as you go.

Method 2: Markdown **bold** syntax (Enhanced Markdown)​

If your team writes in Markdown (or you're pasting Markdown from elsewhere), bold is written as text wrapped in two asterisks with no spaces:

This is **bold** text.
This has *italic* and **bold**.

When you publish, Enhanced Markdown for Confluence renders **bold** as bold. The same applies inside table cells:

| **Header** | Plain |
|------------|-------|
| **Bold**   | Value |

GitHub Flavored Markdown is supported, so __bold__ (double underscore) also works.

Bold, italic, and strikethrough — the difference​

StyleMarkdownResult
Bold**text**text
Italic*text*text
Bold+italic***text***text
Strikethrough~~text~~text

In the standard editor, the toolbar shows B for bold, I for italic, and S for strikethrough — select text and click the button.

Fixing "my bold text shows as ** asterisks **"​

The most common issue: you typed **bold** manually in the standard (rich text) editor. Confluence's rich text editor does not parse Markdown, so it shows the literal asterisk characters.

  • If you're in the standard editor: select the text and press Ctrl+B instead of typing asterisks.
  • If you want to type Markdown and see it formatted: install Enhanced Markdown for Confluence and edit pages in Markdown mode.

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