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 brackets [ 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.

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 [b][/b], e.g.
  
  [b]Hello[/b]
  
  will become Hello
• For underlining use [u][/u], for example:
  
  [u]Good Morning[/u]
  
  becomes Good Morning
• To italicise text use [i][/i], e.g.
  
  This is [i]Great![/i]
  
  would give This is Great!

To alter the colour 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 [color=][/color]. You can specify either a recognised colour name (eg. red, blue, yellow, etc.) or the hexadecimal triplet alternative, e.g. #FFFFFF, #000000. For example, to create red text you could use:
  
  [color=red]Hello![/color]
  
  or
  
  [color=#FF0000]Hello![/color]
  
  Both will output Hello!
• Changing the text size is achieved in a similar way using [size=][/size]. This tag is dependent on the template the user has selected but the recommended format is a numerical value representing the text size in percent, starting at 20 (very small) through to 200 (very large) by default. For example:
  
  [size=30]SMALL[/size]
  
  will generally be SMALL
  
  whereas:
  
  [size=200]HUGE![/size]
  
  will be HUGE!

Yes, of course you can, for example to get someones attention you may write:

[size=200][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! Remember it is up to you, the poster, to ensure tags are closed correctly. For example the following is incorrect:

[b][u]This is wrong[/b][/u]

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 [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. Blobby wrote you would enter:
  
  [quote="Mr. Blobby"]The text Mr. Blobby wrote would go here[/quote]
  
  The resulting output will automatically add "Mr. Blobby wrote:" before the actual text. Remember 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 [quote][/quote] tags. When you view the message it will simply show the text within a quotation block.

If you want to output a piece of code or in fact anything that requires a fixed width, e.g. Courier type font you should enclose the text in [code][/code] tags, e.g.

[code]echo "This is some code";[/code]

All formatting used within [code][/code] tags is retained when you later view it. PHP syntax highlighting can be enabled using [code=php][/code] and is recommended when posting PHP code samples as it improves readability.

BBCode supports two types of lists, unordered and ordered. They are essentially the same as their HTML equivalents. An unordered list outputs each item in your list sequentially one after the other indenting each with a bullet character. To create an unordered list you use [list][/list] and define each item within the list using [*]. For example to list your favourite colours you could use:

[list]
[*]Red
[*]Blue
[*]Yellow
[/list]

This would generate the following list:

• Red
• Blue
• Yellow

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 [list=1][/list] to create a numbered list or alternatively [list=a][/list] for an alphabetical list. As with the unordered list, items are specified using [*]. For example:

[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:

[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

phpBB BBCode supports a number of ways of creating URIs (Uniform Resource Indicators) better known as URLs.

• The first of these uses the [url=][/url] tag, whatever you type after the = sign will cause the contents of that tag to act as a URL. For example to link to phpBB.com you could use:
  
  [url=http://www.phpbb.com/]Visit phpBB![/url]
  
  This would generate the following link, Visit phpBB! Please notice that the link opens in the same window or a new window depending on the users browser preferences.
• If you want the URL itself displayed as the link you can do this by simply using:
  
  [url]http://www.phpbb.com/[/url]
  
  This would generate the following link, http://www.phpbb.com/
• Additionally, phpBB features something called Magic Links, this will turn any syntactically correct URL into a link without you needing to specify any tags or even the leading http://. For example typing www.phpbb.com into your message will automatically lead to www.phpbb.com being output when you view the message.
• The same thing applies equally to e-mail addresses, you can either specify an address explicitly for example:
  
  [email][email protected][/email]
  
  which will output [email protected] or you can just type [email protected] into your message and it will be automatically converted when you view.

As with all the BBCode tags you can wrap URLs around any of the other tags such as [img][/img] (see next entry), [b][/b], etc. As with the formatting tags it is up to you to ensure the correct open and close order is following, for example:

[url=http://www.google.com/][img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/url][/img]

is not correct which may lead to your post being deleted so take care.

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 secondly 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!). To display an image you must surround the URL pointing to the image with [img][/img] tags. For example:

[img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/img]

As noted in the URL section above you can wrap an image in a [url][/url] tag if you wish, e.g.

[url=http://www.google.com/][img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/img][/url]

would generate:

Attachments can now be placed in any part of a post by using the new [attachment=][/attachment] BBCode, if the attachments functionality has been enabled by a board administrator and if you are given the appropriate permissions to create attachments. Within the posting screen is a drop-down box (respectively a button) for placing attachments inline.

The [album] tag can be used to display images from the gallery on BookTalk.org or from your personal gallery accessible through your profile. Place just the image ID between the tags.

You can use the [scroll] tag around text that you would like to display in a box with scroll bars. It is useful for long passages that you don't want to clutter a topic with, but still want to display for reference.

The [spoiler] tag can be used around text you want to hide, which will be accessible when clicked on. This can be used for anything from the punchline of jokes, to movie or book spoilers, to something graphic that you think other forum members might like a warning about before they view it. Please abide by all forum rules when using this tag for that. Optionally, you can use the [spoiler=] tag to give the block of hidden text a title. Just place the title text after the = sign.

Using the [youtube] tag you can display video from Youtube.com right in a forum post. Simply wrap the entire url of the video you want to display within the tag.

You can use the [hr] code to add a simple horizontal line in your post, to separate sections.

Additionally, the [hrc=] tag lets you specify two parameters for it. After the = sign, add a color, either a hex code like #ff0000 or a word like "red", and inside the tag type a number for the height in pixels of the hr.

Use the [center] tag to center align the text inside the tag. Similarly, you can use the [alignright] tag to align text to the right. To left align text, you don't need to use a tag.

The [float] tag can be used to float content, text or images, to the left or right. This differs from aligning text in that other content will wrap around the object inside the [float] tag. Specify whether to [float=left] or [float=right] when using the tag.

You can use the new [pdfview] tag to display the contents of a remotely hosted pdf file. Simply place the full url of the file inside the tag, just like you would for displaying an image inside an [img] tag. Please show restraint in displaying extremely large pdf files, as it slows down the page load time considerably.