How to use a bold asterisk in a Google+ post?

Question

I'm trying to use the asterisk character (*) in a Google Plus post. The problem is that the asterisk character is used in Google+ to make text bold.

*text* would make text.

In this question, someone manages to use them in regular texts, but I want to put one in bold, like this:

this text should be bold but with a * in itself

This doesn't seem to work because the * in the bold phrase ends it being bold.

I tried escaping with a \, but it didn't work. How can we use a bold asterisk in Google+?

Answer 1

I fixed it this way, inspired by @w3d's answer, but it was slightly different:

Let's say I wanted to type "Hello * worlds!"

I had to to it like this in Google+:

*"Hello ** *worlds!"*

(Mind that there should be a space between the second and the third asterisk.)

Answer 2

I don't have any difficulty typing a single asterisk in Google+. A single asterisk should be treated as a literal asterisk (as it is on StackExchange - markdown editor).

To create a bold asterisk simply surround it in asterisks, the same as any other phrase. So *** (3 asterisks) creates a single bold asterisk in the post. However, the difference between a normal and bold asterisk is very subtle on my machine.

EDIT: Although (a bit late) I realise that the question is actually... how to type an asterisk in a phrase that is already emboldened with asterisks, so this might not actually help you!