WhatsApp Rolls Out New Formatting Features, Blocks Screenshots of Profile Pictures

These new features released by WhatsApp have been made available for Android, iOS, Web and Mac desktop users.

WhatsApp is also reportedly working on a feature which will protect users' profile pictures from unauthorised screenshots by others.

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Meta-owned WhatsApp is getting users a new way to format texts to enhance the texting experience. The instant messaging platform has unveiled four additional text formatting features. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced these changes on his WhatsApp channel. These new options complement the existing four text formatting choices available to users. They are available for all Android, iOS, Web, and Mac desktop users.

Let us have a look at what those features are. 

​Monospace​

It refers to a font where each letter and character occupies an equal amount of horizontal space. In order to use this feature, users can enclose the message with triple backticks (```) at the beginning and end.

Bulleted List

The formatted text appears visually clean and adding the formatting is simple. In order to use the bulleted list, users can add a hyphen symbol ( - ) at the start of a new line. Press the space key once, it automatically converts into a bullet point. Moving to the next line adds another bullet point, and to stop it, just tapping on the backspace is enough.

Numbered List

Utilising numbered lists is a straightforward process — just commence a line with the number one (1), followed by a period ( . ), and then press space to initiate a numbered list. The list won't activate if any number other than one is employed, or if the sequence is disrupted by introducing a non-numbered sentence. Another formatting choice is block quotes, denoted by the pipe symbol ( | ) preceding a sentence to emphasize it. To employ this, insert the 'greater than' symbol ( > ) and a space to activate it.

Inline Quote

The final quoting option is the inline quote, which displays a message within a greyed-out bubble. To apply this formatting in WhatsApp, insert the backtick symbol ( ` ) before and after a sentence, without any spaces in between. This will automatically trigger the inline quote formatting. These options have been globally rolled out and are expected to reach all users in the coming days.

Apart from these features, WhatsApp is also reportedly working on a feature which will protect users' profile pictures from unauthorised screenshots by others. Once enabled, others will see a black screen when attempting to take a screenshot, with a message that says, “Can't take a screenshot due to app restrictions.”

This is intended to add another layer to safeguard user privacy on the platform.