When using bold or italic text on Twitter/X, you might notice that these characters count as two instead of one, similar to emojis.

You can test this by copying the text from Publer on X or by using this tool.

Why do formatted characters count as two on Twitter?

Twitter/X’s API does not support bold or italic text directly. The only way to make text bold/italic is with the help of special Unicode characters. When you hover over the "B"/Bold or "I"/Italic icons in the text editor, you will see a pop-up indicating the use of these characters.

These Unicode bold/italic characters are more complex and typically require more than one byte for storage, causing them to count as 2 characters each.

This is a temporary solution because Twitter/X’s API doesn’t support bold or italic text. This workaround gives you more formatting options until the platforms' API supports it directly.

Written by: Brikena Cani

Updated on: 02/10/2024