If you've spent any time designing UI, you know that having a solid roblox studio rich text tags list ready to go makes a massive difference in how your game actually feels to play. Back in the day, if you wanted to make a single word in a sentence bold, you basically had to create three separate TextLabels, align them perfectly, and hope they didn't break when the screen size changed. It was a total nightmare.
Thankfully, Roblox introduced Rich Text a while back, and it's been a life-saver for UI designers and scripters alike. It allows you to format strings using XML-style tags directly inside a single TextLabel, TextButton, or TextBox. But let's be real—nobody remembers every single tag and property off the top of their head. That's why having a quick reference is so helpful when you're in the middle of a late-night dev session.
Before we dive into the list, just a quick reminder: for any of these tags to work, you must check the "RichText" box in the Properties window of your UI element. If you forget that step, your text will just show the literal tags like <b>Hello</b> instead of actually making the word bold. It's the most common mistake people make, and it's usually the first thing I check when my UI looks broken.
The Basic Formatting Tags
These are the ones you'll use most often. They're simple, effective, and follow the same logic as basic HTML.
- Bold:
<b>Text</b>– Makes your text thick and stand out. Great for headers or important names. - Italic:
<i>Text</i>– Tilts the text. I usually use this for flavor text or NPC dialogue. - Underline:
<u>Text</u>– Adds a line underneath. Perfect for clickable links or emphasis. - Strikethrough:
<s>Text</s>– Puts a line through the middle. This is awesome for shop UIs where you want to show an "original price" that's been discounted.
You can also nest these. So, if you want something that is both bold and italic, you'd write <b><i>Bold and Italic</i></b>. Just make sure you close the tags in the right order to keep things clean.
Color and Size Control
This is where things start to look professional. Instead of being stuck with one color for the whole label, you can highlight specific words to draw the player's eye.
The Color Tag
To change the color of a specific segment, you use the <font color=""> tag. You have two main ways to define the color:
- Hex Codes:
<font color="#FF0000">Red Text</font> - RGB Values:
<font color="rgb(255, 0, 0)">Red Text</font>
Most devs prefer Hex codes because they're shorter, but RGB is handy if you're pulling colors directly from the Roblox Color3 picker. If you're making a simulator and want to highlight "Coins" in yellow and "Gems" in cyan, this is exactly how you do it without creating twenty different labels.
The Size Tag
Sometimes you need one word to be slightly bigger for emphasis, or maybe you're creating a stylized "Drop Cap" at the start of a paragraph.
- Usage:
<font size="24">Big Text</font>
The size is measured in pixels, just like the TextSize property. Just be careful not to go too crazy with this, or your text might start clipping out of its container.
Switching Fonts on the Fly
One of the coolest additions to the roblox studio rich text tags list is the ability to swap fonts mid-sentence. You aren't stuck with just "Gotham" or "Arial" for the whole block of text anymore.
- Usage:
<font face="FontName">Text</font>
For example, if you want a fantasy game where an ancient scroll has a different font for magical words, you could use <font face="Michroma">Magic</font>. You just have to make sure you use the exact name of the font as it appears in the Roblox font library. If the font name has spaces, it should still work fine within the quotes.
Adding Text Strokes (Outlines)
The <stroke> tag is arguably the most powerful tool in the rich text arsenal. Before this, adding an outline to specific words was impossible without weird workarounds. Now, you can give your text that "pop" that makes it readable against any background.
The stroke tag has a few different parameters you can tweak: * Color: <stroke color="#000000"> (The color of the outline) * Thickness: <stroke thickness="2"> (How thick the outline is) * Transparency: <stroke transparency="0.5"> (How see-through the outline is) * Joins: <stroke joins="miter"> (Can be miter, round, or bevel)
A full example would look like this: <stroke color="#000000" thickness="3" joins="round">Outlined Text</stroke>
I use this all the time for critical hit numbers or level-up notifications. It makes the text look much more like a "game UI" and less like a standard computer menu.
Transparency and Opacity
Sometimes you want certain parts of a sentence to be less distracting, or you want a "fade out" effect. You can control the transparency of the text color itself (not just the stroke).
- Usage:
<font transparency="0.5">Ghostly Text</font>
The value ranges from 0 (fully visible) to 1 (invisible). This is really useful for "read more" prompts or secondary information that doesn't need to be the star of the show.
Dealing with Special Characters
Here is a common "gotcha" that trips up even experienced developers. Because Rich Text uses < and > to define tags, what happens if you actually want to display a "less than" or "greater than" symbol in your game?
If you just type <, Roblox might think you're trying to start a tag and get confused. To fix this, you have to use escape sequences (also known as character entities):
- For < use:
< - For > use:
> - For & use:
& - For " use:
" - For ' use:
'
So, if you wanted to write Score < 100 in a Rich Text label, you would actually type Score < 100. It looks a bit ugly in the properties window, but it'll look perfect to the player.
Practical Scripting Tips
While you can type these tags directly into the properties window, most of the time you'll be generating them via scripts. When you're doing this in Luau, it's often easiest to use string.format to keep your code readable.
Instead of doing this: label.Text = "Hello " .. "<b>" .. playerName .. "</b>" .. "!"
Try doing this: label.Text = string.format("Hello <b>%s</b>!", playerName)
It's much cleaner, especially when you start adding colors and strokes. Also, keep in mind that Rich Text does have a slight performance hit compared to standard text. You won't notice it on a few labels, but if you have a scrolling list with 500 items and all of them are using complex stroke and font tags, you might see some frame drops on lower-end mobile devices. Use it where it counts!
Wrapping Up
Having a roblox studio rich text tags list is like having a secret weapon for UI design. It takes your game from looking like a basic project to something that feels polished and professional. Whether you're highlighting rare items in a player's inventory or just trying to make your dialogue more engaging, these tags give you the flexibility that the standard properties window just can't match.
Don't be afraid to experiment with combinations. Some of the best UI styles come from layering strokes, font weights, and subtle color shifts. Just remember to always close your tags, enable the RichText property, and keep those escape characters in mind for symbols. Once you get the hang of it, you'll probably find it hard to go back to regular, plain text labels ever again. Happy developing!