Bold and italic text on LinkedIn - and where it actually gets cut off
LinkedIn doesn't support real rich-text formatting in posts, so the bold and italic text you see creators use is actually made of special Unicode "mathematical alphanumeric" characters that look styled in any text field, including LinkedIn's. Select text and click Bold, Italic, or Bold Italic to convert it. Below, two preview boxes estimate where LinkedIn's "…see more" truncation kicks in on desktop versus mobile, so you can make sure your hook lands before the cutoff.
Why this works without LinkedIn actually supporting bold or italic text
Unicode defines a separate set of "mathematical alphanumeric" characters that look like bold or italic letters but are technically distinct characters, not a formatting instruction applied to regular letters - swapping each regular letter for its bold or italic lookalike character is what makes the text appear styled in a plain text field, with no actual rich-text formatting involved anywhere.
Why Unicode-styled text can look inconsistent outside LinkedIn itself
Because these are genuinely different characters rather than real formatting, how well they render depends on the font and character support of whatever app or device displays them - reliable rendering on LinkedIn itself doesn't guarantee the same text will look right if copied elsewhere, and screen readers in particular may announce these lookalike characters oddly or not recognize them as the letters they resemble.
Why desktop and mobile get separate truncation previews
LinkedIn's feed shows meaningfully more text before truncating on desktop than on the typically narrower mobile view - checking your hook against both estimated cutoff points, rather than just one, matters because a hook that lands cleanly on desktop could still get cut off mid-sentence for the larger share of users browsing on mobile.