WhatsApp adds text formatting options, tests profile picture protection

WhatsApp on Wednesday launched four new text formatting options globally. These new options join the existing bold, italics, strikethrough, and monospaced formatting options. The new text tool series will allow users to send messages in bullet points, numbered lists, and two different citation styles. The new Markdown style syntax is available for WhatsApp on Android, iOS, Web and Mac. Additionally, the messaging platform is reportedly testing a new feature to protect users from profile pictures being intercepted by malicious entities.

Gadgets 360 staff were able to test the new format option on WhatsApp on Android version 2.24.3.81 and on the latest version of WhatsApp Web. Formatted text looks clean, and adding formatting is simple. To use a bulleted list, users can add a hyphen (-) at the beginning of a new line. When you add a space, it is automatically converted to a bullet point. Moving to the next line adds another bullet point, to stop it simply hitting the backspace key is enough.

Numbered lists are easier to use – just type the number one (1) at the beginning of the line, followed by a period (.), and then press the spacebar to start a numbered list. If you use any number other than 1, or break the chain by adding a non-numbered sentence, the list will not be triggered. The third formatting option is block quotes, which adds a pipe symbol (|) in front of a sentence to highlight it. To use it, just add the “greater than” symbol ( > ) and add a space to trigger it.

Finally, the last quote option is the inline quote, which displays a message inside a gray bubble. To use this formatting option in WhatsApp, add backticks (`) before and after the sentences without adding any spaces between them. This will automatically trigger the inline quote format. These options have been rolled out globally and will reach all users in the coming days.

On the other hand, WhatsApp feature tracker WABetaInfo spot The service is working on a feature that would protect users’ profile pictures from unauthorized screenshots taken by others. This feature was discovered in Android beta version 2.24.4.25. When enabled, others who try to take a screenshot will see a black screen with a message: “Unable to take a screenshot due to application restrictions.” This move is intended to add another layer of protection for user privacy on the platform. A similar feature is available on the Facebook app for smartphones, where users can turn on the “Profile Picture Protection” option in the profile picture window – once activated, other users will not be able to take screenshots of the profile page or photos.