Problem with ''Emphasis and monospace`` text

[Guido Van Hoecke <guido@vanhoecke.org>]

Hi,

The orgmode help file states that text can be changed to *bold* by
embedding it in a couple of '*' characters. *This works file with text
that is not longer than three lines*.

However, *as soon as the bold text is spread over more than two lines,
such as the paragraph you're reading now, the text does not become bold,
not in Emacs, and not in the exported pdf*.

In that case, the asterisks are output verbatim. As soon as the text is
flowed over two physical lines rather than three, it immediately becomes
bold.

I can imagine that org (or whatever underlying code handles this kind of
markup) deliberately limits the scan for trailing '*' to some arbitrary
value to avoid wild goose chases.

If I paste this mail in an fresh org buffer, the only bold text will be
the word bold in the first sentence, and the last sentence of the first
paragraph. The second paragraph has no bold text at all, unless you join
the sentence into two or one physical lines.

This limitation also bites me for the '/' character, so I assume it's
the same for '_', '=' and '~'.

I was wondering whether this limitation is configurable?

TIA, guivho.