telegram-format

Format Telegram message texts with Markdown or HTML

This library abstracts the formatting options for you.

Install

npm install telegram-format

Usage

const {html: format} = require('telegram-format');
const {markdownv2: format} = require('telegram-format');
import {html as format} from 'telegram-format';
import {markdownv2 as format} from 'telegram-format';

format.bold('hey');
//=> '*hey*'

format.italic('you');
//=> '_you_'

format.bold(format.italic('they'))
//=> '*_they_*'

format.url('me', 'https://edjopato.de');
//=> '[me](https://edjopato.de)'

// Legacy but still works
const {markdown: format} = require('telegram-format');
import {markdown as format} from 'telegram-format';

When using format as an alias its easy to switch between Markdown and HTML fast.

Escaping Input

When you have something that might be unescaped you need to use format.escape before formatting it.

const username = 'master_yoda'
format.italic(format.escape(username))

format.monospace and format.monospaceBlock will escape on their own as they only need to escape specific characters. You do not need to escape the input in this cases.

MarkdownV2 and HTML are fairly similar in escaping inputs but Markdown is not. Markdown is still supported by this library and by Telegram for legacy reasons but it behaves a bit differently. Markdown still escapes inputs and does not need format.escape before. Also nested formatting is not supported by telegram itself. Consider switching to MarkdownV2 or HTML for simplicity reasons.

API

bold(text)

text

Type: string

Text to be formatted bold

italic(text)

text

Type: string

Text to be formatted italic

strikethrough(text)

text

Type: string

Text to be striked through

underline(text)

text

Type: string

Text to be underlined

monospace(text)

text

Type: string

Text to be displayed as inline monospace

monospaceBlock(text, [programmingLanguage])

text

Type: string

Text to be displayed as monospace block

programmingLanguage

Type: string (optional)

Can be used to specify the programming language of the code

url(label, url)

label

Type: string

Label of the url field

url

Type: string

Url which is called when the user taps on the label

userMention(label, userId)

label

Type: string

Label of the user mention. Might be used with the first name for example.

userID

Type: number

User id to which is linked

escape(text)

text

Type: string

Text which should be escaped so it does not interfer with formatting.

User generated Text should always be escapted to prevent errors.