After adding document sharing, the latest WhatsApp update brings with it text formatting for messages.
Users can now bold and italicise message text, something which has been requested for quite a while. To make text bold it must be added in-between two *asterisks* and for italics it needs to be in the middle of two _underscores_. The feature is not only limited to messages but also works with notification alerts. The name of the sender is marked in bold and the message formatting is preserved in the preview.
Currently, the update can be only be downloaded from the official website link. The WhatsApp tester program grants access to the beta version available on the Google Play store.