Text Formatting

Tobigram uses a custom Markdown dialect for text formatting which adds some unique features that make writing styled texts easier in both Markdown and HTML. You can send sophisticated text messages and media captions using a variety of decorations that can also be nested in order to combine multiple styles together.

The official BOT API style HTML formatting is also supported

Tip

The default parse mode, DEFAULT, understands both syntaxes in one message, so **bold** and <blockquote> can sit side by side. MARKDOWN and HTML are the strict modes: each escapes the other’s syntax, so a tag inside strict Markdown is sent as literal text. DISABLED sends everything as written.

Basic Styles

When formatting your messages, you can choose between Markdown-style, HTML-style or both (default). The following is a list of the basic styles currently supported by Tobigram.

  • bold

  • italic

  • underline

  • strike

  • blockquote and expandable blockquote

  • inline fixed-width code

  • pre-formatted fixed-width code block

  • spoiler

  • custom emoji (<emoji id="...">)

  • formatted date and time (<tg-time unix="...">)

  • text URL

  • user text mention

HTML Style

To strictly use this mode, pass HTML to the parse_mode parameter when using send_message(). 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>strike</s>, <del>strike</del>, <strike>strike</strike>

<tg-spoiler>spoiler</tg-spoiler>, <span class="tg-spoiler">spoiler</span>

<blockquote>block quotation</blockquote>

<blockquote expandable>expandable block quotation</blockquote>

<a href="https://pyrogram.com/">text URL</a>

<a href="tg://user?id=123456789">inline mention</a>

<code>inline fixed-width code</code>

<tg-emoji emoji-id="5469770542288478598">👍</tg-emoji>

<tg-time unix="1735689600" format="d">formatted date and time</tg-time>

<pre>
    <code class="language-python">
        pre-formatted fixed-width code block written in the Python programming language
    </code>
</pre>

Example:

from pyrogram.enums import ParseMode

await app.send_message(
    chat_id="me",
    text=(
        "<b>bold</b>, <strong>bold</strong>"
        "<i>italic</i>, <em>italic</em>"
        "<u>underline</u>, <ins>underline</ins>"
        "<s>strike</s>, <strike>strike</strike>, <del>strike</del>"
        "<tg-spoiler>spoiler</tg-spoiler>\n\n"

        "<b>bold <i>italic bold <s>italic bold strike <tg-spoiler>italic bold strike spoiler</tg-spoiler></s> <u>underline italic bold</u></i> bold</b>\n\n"

        "<a href=\"https://tobigram.com/\">inline URL</a> "
        "<a href=\"tg://user?id=23122162\">inline mention of a user</a>\n"
        "<tg-emoji emoji-id=5469770542288478598>👍</tg-emoji> "
        "<code>inline fixed-width code</code> "
        "<pre>pre-formatted fixed-width code block</pre>\n\n"
        "<pre><code class='language-python'>"
        "for i in range(10):\n"
        "    print(i)"
        "</code></pre>\n\n"

        "<tg-time unix=\"1735689600\" format=\"d\">today</tg-time>\n\n"

        "<blockquote>Block quotation started"
        "Block quotation continued"
        "The last line of the block quotation</blockquote>"
        "<blockquote expandable>Expandable block quotation started"
        "Expandable block quotation continued"
        "Expandable block quotation continued"
        "Hidden by default part of the block quotation started"
        "Expandable block quotation continued"
        "The last line of the block quotation</blockquote>"
    ),
    parse_mode=ParseMode.HTML
)

Note

All <, > and & symbols that are not a part of a tag or an HTML entity must be replaced with the corresponding HTML entities (< with &lt;, > with &gt; and & with &amp;). You can use this snippet to quickly escape those characters:

text = "<my & text>"
text = text.replace("<", "&lt;").replace("&", "&amp;")

print(text)

&lt;my &amp; text>

Markdown Style

To strictly use this mode, pass MARKDOWN to the parse_mode parameter when using send_message(). Use the following syntax in your message:

Note

Blockquotes can be written in Markdown using > (for standard quotes) and **>...|| (for expandable quotes). For custom emoji, use HTML syntax (<emoji id="..."> or <tg-emoji emoji-id="...">). In the default combined parse mode, you can mix HTML emoji tags alongside Markdown styles freely.

**bold**

__italic__

--underline--

~~strike~~

`inline fixed-width code`

```
pre-formatted
  fixed-width
    code block
```

||spoiler||

>block quotation

**>expandable block quotation||

[text URL](https://tobigram.com/)

[text user mention](tg://user?id=123456789)

Example:

from pyrogram.enums import ParseMode

await app.send_message(
    chat_id="me",
    text=(
        "**bold**, "
        "__italic__, "
        "--underline--, "
        "~~strike~~, "
        "||spoiler||, "
        ">quoted block\n"
        "**>expandable quote||\n"
        "[URL](https://tobigram.com/), "
        "`code`, "
        "```py\n"
        "for i in range(10):\n"
        "    print(i)\n"
        "```\n"

    ),
    parse_mode=ParseMode.MARKDOWN
)

Different Styles

By default, when ignoring the parse_mode parameter, both Markdown and HTML styles are enabled together. This means you can combine together both syntaxes in the same text:

await app.send_message(chat_id="me", text="**bold**, <i>italic</i>")

Result:

bold, italic

If you don’t like this behaviour you can always choose to only enable either Markdown or HTML in strict mode by passing MARKDOWN or HTML as argument to the parse_mode parameter.

from pyrogram.enums import ParseMode

await app.send_message(chat_id="me", text="**bold**, <i>italic</i>", parse_mode=ParseMode.MARKDOWN)
await app.send_message(chat_id="me", text="**bold**, <i>italic</i>", parse_mode=ParseMode.HTML)

Result:

bold, <i>italic</i>

**bold**, italic

In case you want to completely turn off the style parser, simply pass DISABLED to parse_mode. The text will be sent as-is.

from pyrogram.enums import ParseMode

await app.send_message(chat_id="me", text="**bold**, <i>italic</i>", parse_mode=ParseMode.DISABLED)

Result:

**bold**, <i>italic</i>

Nested and Overlapping Entities

Warning

The Markdown style is not recommended for complex text formatting.

If you want to use complex text formatting such as nested entities, overlapping entities use the HTML style instead.

You can also style texts with more than one decoration at once by nesting entities together. For example, you can send a text message with both bold and underline styles, or a text that has both italic and strike styles, and you can still combine both Markdown and HTML together.

Here there are some example texts you can try sending:

Markdown:

  • **bold, --underline--**

  • **bold __italic --underline ~~strike~~--__**

  • **bold __and** italic__

HTML:

  • <b>bold, <u>underline</u></b>

  • <b>bold <i>italic <u>underline <s>strike</s></u></i></b>

  • <b>bold <i>and</b> italic</i>

Combined:

  • --you can combine <i>HTML</i> with **Markdown**--

  • **and also <i>overlap** --entities</i> this way--

RichText (Rich Media Text Formatting)

RichText is used for Instant View page blocks, article rendering and inline rich media formatting. It is a different wire format from MessageEntity-based text formatting and supports advanced decorations such as LaTeX mathematical formulas, subscripts, superscripts, highlighted text backgrounds, and named anchors.

For complete guides, usage tutorials, and working code examples:

  • See Rich Text Formatting for comprehensive details on syntax, formulas, and supported types.

  • See Rich Messages for sending structured bot documents with headings, tables, and media.