Why you shouldn’t use special characters to simulate styling (bold/italics/small caps etc.)?

Let’s say you have a text to send as plain text.

You could write the title without any special markup (because we’re talking about the plain text), or you might choose a special effect such as:

• Bold (serif): 𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭
• Italic Bold (serif): 𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕
• Double-Struck: 𝕥𝕖𝕩𝕥

The list can go on and on: ••¤(`× 🎀 𝓉𝑒𝓍𝓉 🎀 ×`(¤••

There are special websites to help you with this »

Why should you avoid this?

• Portability – it might unreadable on some devices;
• Searchability – it might make it difficult to search for such texts;
• Accessibility – screen readers might have issues with such fonts;

In conclusion, for both users/search engines, these texts are to be avoided.

Details on these:

• text formatting – Why shouldn’t I use Unicode characters to simulate typographic styles (such as small caps or script)? – Super User
• fonts – What sort of character is this (𝒲) – Super User
• Is it acceptable to use unicode fonts for general discourse (Questions/Answers/Comments)? – Science Fiction & Fantasy Meta Stack Exchange

How to convert fake text to “normal” text?

Consider using a tool such as Normalize Unicode Text – Online Unicode Tools. (others »)