Type BBCode on the left, watch the rendered post appear on the right. Catch a broken tag, a runaway quote block, or a colour nobody will read, before the post goes live on the board.
Source on the left, rendered post on the right
The rendered post shows up here.
HTML never made it into forum posts, for a good reason. Letting strangers write raw markup on a page you own is how a board ends up with someone's script running in a signature. BBCode was the compromise: square brackets instead of angle brackets, a fixed list of tags the software knows, everything else printed as plain text. phpBB, XenForo, MyBB, SMF, and vBulletin all still parse it, and so do plenty of game wikis, changelogs, and support desks built on top of them.
The trouble starts because BBCode was never standardised. Each board grew its own tag set and its own quirks, so a post rendering cleanly on one forum comes out mangled on the next. Writing in a preview pane first turns those surprises into edits you make before anyone reads the thread.
The core tags are safe everywhere. The disagreements live in the second tier, and those are the ones worth checking before you paste a long post.
| Tag | phpBB | XenForo | MyBB | SMF | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[b] [i] [u] [url] [img] [quote] [code] [list] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | The set to build a post around. |
[s] strikethrough | Custom | Yes | Yes | Yes | phpBB needs an admin-defined custom tag for it. |
[table] [tr] [td] | No | Yes | No | Yes | On phpBB and MyBB a table falls back to literal brackets. |
[spoiler] | Custom | Yes | Plugin | Varies | XenForo adds [ispoiler] for inline hiding. |
[size] scale | Percent | 1 to 7 or px | Percent or px | Points | Same tag, four different meanings for the number. |
[center] [right] | Custom | Yes | Use [align] | Yes | MyBB prefers [align=center] over the short form. |
Board owners add and remove tags freely, so treat this as a starting point rather than a guarantee. When a forum publishes its own tag list in the help page, that page beats every table on the internet.
Being straight about the gaps saves you a wasted post:
[youtube], [member], or a rank badge tag, this editor prints the brackets. Guessing at a tag nobody else implements would be worse than showing you the raw form.[b] on one line and close it three paragraphs down and the preview leaves it unformatted, which is how most boards behave too.[quote=Rachel] renders as a plain quote block here. Your forum adds the name header and a jump link.[b]bold[/b], [i]italic[/i], [u]underline[/u], [s]struck[/s], [color=#0d47fb]blue[/color], [size=4]larger[/size]
[url]https://toolexe.com[/url], [url=https://toolexe.com/html/bbcode-editor]named link[/url], [img]https://cdn.toolexe.com/screenshot.png[/img], [email=support@toolexe.com]Mail us[/email]
[quote]quoted text[/quote], [code]console.log(1)[/code], [spoiler]the ending[/spoiler], [hr]
[list][*]item[/list], [list=1][*]step[/list], [center]centred[/center], [right]right[/right], [table][tr][td]cell[/td][/tr][/table]
Select text first, then press a toolbar button, and the tag wraps your selection instead of dropping an empty pair at the cursor. The colour swatch and the size dropdown behave the same way.
[b][i][u]The Templates button drops in four starting points: a bug report with steps and environment rows, a guide post with numbered steps and a code block, a signature block, and a sampler showing every tag the preview understands. Each one replaces the editor contents, so copy anything worth keeping first.
[/b] in the rendered pane means a tag opened somewhere and never closed.Board differences, size scales, privacy, and what the preview does with a tag you left open.
It matches the common tags. Themes, avatars, quote headers, and any custom tags your admin added are rendered by the forum software, so a long post still deserves one look at the board preview before you submit.
Boards disagree on the size scale. phpBB reads a percentage such as size=150, XenForo accepts 1 to 7 or a pixel value, and SMF reads points. This editor uses the 1 to 7 scale, so translate the number when you paste into a board on a different scale.
No. Parsing and preview run inside your browser tab. Nothing reaches a server, so drafts holding private board content stay on your machine.
Yes. Clear the editor, paste your post, and the preview redraws while you type. Ctrl+Z walks back through your edits.
The parser closes inline tags at the end of a line, same as most board software. Wrap each paragraph in its own tag pair rather than opening one at the top and closing it far below.
They show up as literal text in the preview instead of formatting. This is the fastest way to spot a missing closing tag before a board silently swallows half your post.
