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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
* What is BBCode?
Text Formatting
* How to create bold, italic and underlined text
* How to change the text colour or size
* Can I combine formatting tags?
Quoting and outputting fixed-width text
* Quoting text in replies
Generating lists
* Creating an Un-ordered list
* Creating an Ordered list
Creating Links
* Linking to another site
Showing images in posts
* Adding an image to a post
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Introduction
What is BBCode?
BBCode is a special implementation of HTML. Whether you can actually use BBCode in your posts on the forum is determined by the administrator. In addition, you can disable BBCode on a per post basis via the posting form. BBCode itself is similar in style to HTML: tags are enclosed in square braces [ and ] rather than < and > and it offers greater control over what and how something is displayed. Depending on the template you are using you may find adding BBCode to your posts is made much easier through a clickable interface above the message area on the posting form. Even with this you may find the following guide useful.
Text Formatting
How to create bold, italic and underlined text
BBCode includes tags to allow you to quickly change the basic style of your text. This is achieved in the following ways:
To make a piece of text bold enclose it in
Code:
[b][/b]
eg.
Code:
[b]Hello[/b]
will become Hello
For underlining use
Code:
[u][/u]
for example:
Code:
[u]Good Morning[/u]
becomes Good Morning
To italicise text use
Code:
[i][/i]
eg.
Code:
This is [i]Great![/i]
would give This is Great!
How to change the text colour or size
To alter the color or size of your text the following tags can be used. Keep in mind that how the output appears will depend on the viewers browser and system:
Changing the colour of text is achieved by wrapping it in
Code:
[color=][/color]
You can specify either a recognised colour name (eg. red, blue, yellow, etc.) or the hexadecimal triplet alternative, eg. #FFFFFF, #000000. For example, to create red text you could use:
Code:
[color=red]Hello![/color]
or
Code:
[color=#FF0000]Hello![/color]
will both output
Hello!
Changing the text size is achieved in a similar way using
Code:
[size=][/size]
This tag is dependent on the template you are using but the recommended format is a numerical value representing the text size in pixels, starting at 1 (so tiny you will not see it) through to 7 (very large). For example:
Code:
[size=1]SMALL[/size]
will generally be SMALL
whereas:
Code:
[size=7]HUGE![/size]
will be HUGE!
Can I combine formatting tags?
Yes, of course you can; for example to get someones attention you may write:
Code:
[size=4][color=red][b]LOOK AT ME![/b][/color][/size]
this would output LOOK AT ME!
We don't recommend you output lots of text that looks like this, though! It could get confusing. Remember that it is up to you, the poster, to ensure that tags are closed correctly. For example, the following is incorrect:
Code:
[b][u]This is wrong[/b][/u]
Quoting and outputting fixed-width text
Quoting text in replies
There are two ways you can quote text: with a reference or without.
When you utilise the Quote function to reply to a post on the board you should notice that the post text is added to the message window enclosed in a
Code:
[quote=""][/quote]
block. This method allows you to quote with a reference to a person or whatever else you choose to put. For example, to quote a piece of text Mr. Marcus wrote, you would enter:
Code:
[quote="Mr. Blobby"]The text Mr. Marcus wrote would go here[/quote]
The resulting output will automatically add: Mr. Blobby wrote: before the actual text. Remember that you must include the quotation marks "" around the name you are quoting -- they are not optional.
The second method allows you to blindly quote something. To utilise this enclose the text in
Code:
[quote][/quote]
tags. When you view the message it will simply show: Quote: before the text itself.
Generating lists
Creating an Un-ordered list
BBCode supports two types of lists, unordered and ordered. They are essentially the same as their HTML equivalents. An unordered list ouputs each item in your list sequentially one after the other indenting each with a bullet character. To create an unordered list you use
Code:
[list][/list]
and define each item within the list using [*]. For example, to list your favorite colours you could use:
Code:
[list] [*]Red [*]Blue [*]Yellow [/list]
This would generate the following list:
* Red
* Blue
* Yellow
Creating an Ordered list
The second type of list, an ordered list gives you control over what is output before each item. To create an ordered list you use
Code:
[list=1][/list]
to create a numbered list or alternatively
Code:
[list=a][/list]
for an alphabetical list. As with the unordered list items are specified using [*]. For example:
Code:
[list=1] [*]Go to the shops [*]Buy a new computer [*]Swear at computer when it crashes [/list]
will generate the following:
1. Go to the shops
2. Buy a new computer
3. Swear at computer when it crashes
Whereas for an alphabetical list you would use:
Code:
[list=a] [*]The first possible answer [*]The second possible answer [*]The third possible answer [/list]
giving
1. The first possible answer
2. The second possible answer
3. The third possible answer
Linking to another site
Code:
[url][/url]
for example:
Code:
[url]http://www.phpbb.com/[/url]
Showing images in posts
Adding an image to a post
phpBB BBCode incorporates a tag for including images in your posts. Two very important things to remember when using this tag are: many users do not appreciate lots of images being shown in posts and second, the image you display must already be available on the Internet (it cannot exist only on your computer, for example, unless you run a webserver!). There is currently no way of storing images locally with phpBB (all these issues are expected to be addressed in the next release of phpBB). To display an image, you must surround the URL pointing to the image with
Code:
[img][/img]
tags. For example:
Code:
[img=http://www.phpbb.com/images/phplogo.gif]