I mean, since this is single window (so no side-by-side source and compiled) that when you surround with asterisks, the asterisks are still visible, but the whole word is italicised. it is often performed by markdown syntax highlighters - if you're on OS X, try textmate 2 with the extension ".md" to see what I mean (it makes a wonderful job of semi-previewing my octopress blog entries.)