# What is this alternative to HTML tags?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 1, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913 "2005-11-01T15:48:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/1 "2005-11-01T15:48:06Z")
We use an in house IM system at work and quite by accident I discovered that placing an asterisk around text bolds it. Also, placing a forward slash around text makes it italic.
I’d like to know all of the tags available but this is a large corporation and just finding the right person to ask would be a chore.
Is this some standard I’m not aware of or did the guys at work just make these tags up?
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/2 "2005-11-01T15:54:36Z")
This was (still is) the convention when using plain-text email and Usenet messages, since you couldn’t mark up your message. There’s _bold_, /italic/, and _underline_. That’s about it.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/3 "2005-11-01T16:37:59Z")
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/4 "2005-11-01T16:38:48Z")
If your system is in-house then those guys just made it up, based on what _Terminus Est_ described. There is no standard for it, just a /de facto/ practice. So the only guys who can tell you are the geeks at work who wrote the system.
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### Author:  [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/5 "2005-11-01T16:52:47Z")
FWIW, modern versions of Microsoft Word to this, too, but only for _bold_ and _italic_. You can turn it on an off in the autocorrect options.
I use this feature a lot because I tend to type on an Alphasmart - a simple electronic text editor that doesn’t support formatting. When I plug it in to the computer, it acts like a keyboard and types its information into whatever app happens to be open. So the above trick lets me get bold and italic into Word from a device that doesn’t have them.
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### Author:  [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/6 "2005-11-01T17:54:00Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#):
>
> FWIW, modern versions of Microsoft Word to this, too, but only for _bold_ and _italic_. You can turn it on an off in the autocorrect options.
>
> I use this feature a lot because I tend to type on an Alphasmart - a simple electronic text editor that doesn’t support formatting. When I plug it in to the computer, it acts like a keyboard and types its information into whatever app happens to be open. So the above trick lets me get bold and italic into Word from a device that doesn’t have them.
What, apparently, it will _not_ do is fix my lousy typing:
“to” = “do”, “on an off” = “on and off”, relocate the commas to where they make sense.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-alternative-to-html-tags/328913/7 "2005-11-01T18:24:45Z")
It’s [Setext](http://www.valdemar.net/~erik/setext/), unless they’re just borrowing some of the better-known conventions thereof.