How to format text with bold and italic styling in Telegram bot using HTML form

Other Questions Telegram bot
1

I have a Telegram bot set up and I’m trying to send formatted messages through an HTML form. I want the text to appear with bold and italic formatting when sent to the bot.

Here’s my current HTML setup:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head><title>Bot Message Sender</title></head>
<body>
    <form method="POST" action="https://api.telegram.org/bot[YOUR_TOKEN]/sendMessage">
        <input type="hidden" name="chat_id" value="@mychannel">
        <input type="hidden" name="parse_mode" value="HTML">
        <textarea name="message_text" placeholder="Enter your message here"></textarea>
        <button type="submit">Send Message</button>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

When I try to send something like **bold text** or _italic text_, it just shows up as plain text instead of being formatted. The formatting tags aren’t being processed correctly. What am I doing wrong with the HTML form configuration?

2

yeah, you’re mixing markdown syntax with HTML parse mode - that’s like speaking french to someone who only understands english lol. since you’ve got parse_mode set to html, use HTML tags instead. so bold and italic rather than ** and _

3

You’re mixing markdown with HTML parse mode. Since you set parse_mode to HTML, use HTML tags instead of markdown symbols. Change **bold text** to <b>bold text</b> and _italic text_ to <i>italic text</i>. For both bold and italic, wrap it like <b><i>bold italic text</i></b>. You could switch your parse_mode to “Markdown” or “MarkdownV2” if you prefer asterisks and underscores, but HTML tags work better and are more consistent with Telegram bots.

4

You’ve got parse_mode set to HTML but you’re using markdown syntax. That won’t work. For HTML mode, use <b>text</b> for bold and <i>text</i> for italic. I made this same mistake when I started with Telegram bots. Your HTML form looks fine, just make sure you’re putting the right HTML tags in your textarea. Heads up - if you’re sending messages straight from the form without backend processing, you’ll probably hit CORS issues. Add some error handling to catch failed requests.