# Can you give me some formatting help? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [August 12, 2024, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630 "2024-08-12T21:48:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/1 "2024-08-12T21:48:33Z")
I have a post I want to make but I need to hide a word in it. I have forgotten how to do that, and poking around has not given me the solution. I’m an idiot, can’t find how to do the BB codes. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/2 "2024-08-12T21:51:49Z")
No need to do codes: select the word, go to the symbol on the right, the wheely thing and you will not see it because you have to scroll the list down two or three steps. Then you have “blur spoiler” which you click, and voilá! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/3 "2024-08-12T21:51:58Z")
Ninjad ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/4 "2024-08-12T22:06:24Z")
Not working yet. Not finding the wheely thing. As I said, I’m an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/5 "2024-08-12T22:13:03Z")
The “wheely thing” looks like a gear, and when you are composing a post, it should be the right-most in the line of buttons at the top of the composing window. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/6 "2024-08-12T22:14:44Z")
Thank you It worked!!! ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/7 "2024-08-12T22:16:51Z")
1. Open a reply window. Type something including the word(s) you want to blur. Select/highlight the word(s) you want to blur. 1. Look at the top of the reply window. At least on my desktop, there’s a whole lot of symbols up there which somebody probably thought were intuitive, but many of which aren’t. At the far right, at least on my screen, there’s something that looks a little like a gear wheel, or maybe like a six-pointed star with a hole in the middle. Click on that. 2. Clicking on that causes a short drop-down menu to appear. At the bottom of that menu is “blur spoiler”. Click on that, and whatever you’ve selected will be blurred. Like this. In the reply window it’ll be visible but surrounded by spoiler tags. In the preview window, and your post when you post it, it’ll be blurred and only show up legibly if the reader clicks on the blurred text. ETA: and while I was typing all that somebody else solved the problem much more concisely . . . ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/8 "2024-08-12T22:29:06Z")
You were probably typing when I finally worked it out. But thanks to everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/9 "2024-08-13T10:52:37Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > No need to do codes But if you do want to type the codes, “spoiler” and “/spoiler” inside square brackets around the text you want blurred out should work. (Like this) ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-give-me-some-formatting-help/1005630/10 "2024-08-13T11:40:34Z")
If you want to do codes, here is a reference: > **[Formatting posts using markdown, BBCode, and HTML](https://meta.discourse.org/t/formatting-posts-using-markdown-bbcode-and-html/239348)** > > 🔖 This reference guide details all the formatting options available in Discourse posts, including markdown, BBCode, and HTML. It specifies what is supported and provides resources where you can see examples. 🙋 Required user level: All users ... Quotes that are longer than a few words and quotes that have carriage returns in them need to have the quote tags on their own separate line. We also don’t allow you to upload your own images here (we’re not a hosting site, sorry).