Shortcut simply presses keys automatically, it does not add formatting, and therefore any application that doesn't use Word's default (CTRL-B) to bold will not go into bold mode using a made-for-Word shortcut.

If your non-Word application supports bolding, you will need to modify the shortcut to use its particular key command to enable/disable bolding.

For example to bold in notepad editor, you will need to use the special keys feature in ShortCut.

Click on the Add a New ShortCut Entry button. Type the name of the abbreviation in the Abbreviation field (in this instance we named the abbreviation “noteb”.

 

Click on the Special Keys button to bring up the special keys dialogue box.

To bold, mimic the keys manually typed to bold in Notepad editor or other non-Word Application. Those Keys are ALT+O to pull down the Format menu. "F" to select the Font option. Then ALT+Y Special Key to select font style, type “bold”. The last key is to insert the Enter special key. The end results should look as displayed.

In this instance, {ALT O}f{ALT Y}bold{ENTER} would be the expander used to format bold in notepad. The same would apply for italic, regular or bold italic accordingly.