Formatting text in a Paragraph field

[MrUpsidown]

I added a Paragraph (multiline text field) to my issues.

It says the field supports rich text, bold, colored text, etc. but whatever I tried to insert rich text failed.

I am trying to set the field value to something like :

Some bold text
Some standard text

By manually editing the field on the issue, or via automation. Both fail.

If I try to set the field value with automation like

*Some bold text*
Some standard text

When viewing the issue, I can see the 2 asterisks (*) around "Some bold text" but the text is not set to bold. The same happens when editing the field on the issue itself, and the same happens with other formatting such as color, etc.

[Jordan Wilkinson · Accepted solution]

Actually here is the fix. You have to go to the field configuration and change the renderer on the field.

Server:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-change-text-custom-field-to-rich-text-editor-1026536446.html

Cloud:
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/specify-field-behavior/

[MrUpsidown]

Platform Notice: Server and Data Center Only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the server and data center platforms.

I am on Jira Cloud and I don't have the options described in the link you posted.

[Jordan Wilkinson]

Oh yea, skip step 1. See the instructions at the bottom of this cloud article. I will edit my original answer.
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/specify-field-behavior/

[MrUpsidown]

OK thanks. Strange behaviour though: When editing the field manually, if I want bold text, I need to wrap a word in between 2 asterisks like **something** but if I write **something** in that field (now in Wiki style) from an Automation rule, the result is *something* instead of something. 

And if instead I use *something* in my Automation rule, it displays in the field as something (bold) when I would actually expect to see something (italic).

[JD]

This seems very buggy/incomplete. Very annoying that I cannot create a Description type field that has a formatted default value. It simply refuses to format the text no matter how I format it and which renderer is selected.

[Ricky Millar]

I seem to have lost the option for the renderer recently

[Oona Donckels]

hasn't worked for me either the past 2 yrs 

[pcruz]

@MrUpsidown bold is 2 asterisks only, not 4.
Correct: *somethingbold*

Incorrect: **something**

[Haripriya]

Hi @MrUpsidown

Default texts are added using Wiki-Style renderer and Wiki mark-up is used for this. Whereas the issue view uses ADF where markdown and keyboard shortcuts are used. Please refer to the article below for more details on this. 

How is Field Configuration's wiki-style mark-up converted to Rich text in Jira Service Management 

Regards,
Haripriya

[Jordan Wilkinson]

I'm experiencing the same issue.