Shortly after iOS 18 was released, I received a text message from a contact who had made one of the words bold. I had never seen bold text outside of a message subject, a feature I never even use anyway. I was impressed to discover that the new version enables adding style to messages by way of basic text formatting and effects.
It’s already difficult to communicate emotion and nonverbal meaning in text messages, so the ability to style text is a welcome addition in iOS 18 and macOS 15. Other approaches, which are all still available, include adding emoji, applying a special effect to the whole content of a message, adding animation to the background, and adding a handwritten message.
Now, it’s possible to style individual words or characters and add effects on a smaller scale.
Add Style on iPhone & iPad
When composing an iMessage (this feature does not work with SMS or RCS), first select some text. That is, double-tap (and drag) on one or more words, triple-tap to select a paragraph, and/or drag the selection handles to add or subtract from the selection.
Next, if you have Predictive Text enabled — showing a bar at the top of the keyboard with suggested words — tap 
on the right side. Or, select Text Effects from the selection menu.
Apply your desired formatting and/or effects. When you’re done, tap in the text field to return to the regular keyboard.
Add Style on Mac
The Mac version of Messages includes an entirely new Format menu, which contains all the same type style and text effect choices, and offers keyboard shortcuts for most of them, too.
When you select text in an iMessage, these commands are available, while in any other type of message they are greyed out.
A Shortcut for Strikethrough
Consistent with other applications on the Mac, Strikethrough does not have a provided shortcut in Messages. Giving it Command+S could be confusing to the mind or muscles as that shortcut is usually offered to Save, even though this command isn’t present in all applications.
However, you are welcome to create a custom shortcut for Strikethrough. You could choose Command+S anyway, if you wish. However, if you prefer to avoid confusing yourself because you rely on that shortcut in apps that do have a Save command, feel free to use any other combination of modifiers plus a standard key.
For me, a question remains: As Apple continues to add features to Messages, will I use them or will I forget that they exist?
Send Later is valuable and I use it regularly to ensure contacts receive my messages at waking, non-interruptive moments. I’ll write about it soon.
However, I have found no need for Stickers and Memoji, and I rarely add emoji to my messages. Only time will tell whether I make use of style and effects. What about you?
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