Discord is one of the most comprehensive communication apps out there, boasting loads of chat options through channels, direct messages, voice and video. It’s an immensely powerful way to stay in the loop on just about anything – join or create servers and channels with a handful of friends or thousands of like-minded fans following their favourite games, creators and companies.

Take full control of your Discord presence and help make your own spaces the best place to hang out online using these features.

Want to help your posts stand out in channels? Discord supports simple code known as Markdown that can apply different effects to your text. While writing your post, add a single asterisk each side of text to *italicise it*, two asterisks to **make it bold** or three for ***bold italics***. You can also put two underscores each side to __underline__ or add tildes to ~~strikethrough~~.

Neatly format longer posts by using hash symbols (#) to create headers. Add one, two or three hash symbols in front of your text to create headers in large, medium or small sizes. Combine the hash with a dash (–#) to shrink the text that follows into a smaller subheading.

Anyone who owns a server can add custom emoji to their channel – great if you ever feel like the perfect emoji to express your mood is missing from the line-up of smiley faces, icons and symbols, or they’re a little too static for your tastes.

Tap your server’s name at the top of the screen, then the cog to access the Server Settings menu. There you’ll find the Emoji tab where you can upload custom emoji directly from Photos (make sure they’re the correct size and file type) or upload GIFs to use animated emoji in your posts.

Discord’s Nitro membership is required to use animated emoji and post a server’s custom emoji on other servers. The number of custom emoji slots for a server can be increased from the standard 50 by boosting its level.

Its cross-platform support means Discord is perfect for chatting while you play your favourite videogames, but you might not know that there are loads of fun games you can try for free inside the app itself. While in Voice or Video Chat, tap the Activities icon on the bottom menu bar (it’s a circle with four shapes inside, between the message bubble and red X icons) to find all sorts of Activities to enjoy with friends.

Some of our favourite Discord games include Gartic Phone – a hilarious online version of classic party game Telephone – multiplayer mini-golf game Putt Party and the cosy animal-matching game Farm Merge Valley. Plus, you can watch YouTube videos with friends using Watch Together, stream music using TuneIn and compete or put your heads together in social trivia game Quiz Planet.

The drop-in, drop-out nature of Discord makes it feel like a relaxing, casual place to be. Sometimes, though, a little organisation can help people get together in a more engaged way. Creating an event can be a great way to encourage people to meet up in a certain place and time for a shared experience.

If you’re a server owner (or another role with the right permissions) you can create an event by tapping the calendar icon at the top of your server’s tab. Choose where the event will take place, whether that’s in a particular voice, video or text channel, or in person, and add some details: a name, start date and time, whether it will repeat and a short description. That way, everyone will know exactly where to meet and what they’re there to do – a great way to really feel like a community.

Go by many names on the internet? Us too. For those times where you want to remain Sir Suzy Greathammer the Barbarian in your weekly fantasy role-playing group’s channel but just Jules to your close friends, use Discord’s server profiles feature.

Nitro members can tap a server’s name at the top of the screen to find the Edit Server Profile option. Change your name, picture, pronouns and profile banner to have a custom profile apply to just that server, letting you stay exactly who you want to be, where you want to be.