BBCode Viewer

BBCode Viewer

The BBCode Viewer shows how a forum post will look before you publish it — or lets you read BBCode that was exported from a board, a backup or a database dump where the tags appear as raw text. Paste the code on the left and the formatted result appears on the right while you type. No account, upload or installation is required.

What it renders

• Text formatting – [b], [i], [u], [s], [sub], [sup], [color=], [size=] and [font=].
• Links and media – [url], [email], [img] with an optional size, and [youtube] embeds.
• Structure – [quote] and [quote="Name"], bulleted and numbered [list]s, [table], [spoiler], [hr], and alignment tags such as [center].
• Code – [code] blocks keep whitespace and show tags literally.

Typical uses

Moderators use a viewer to check reported posts without logging in, developers use it to inspect BBCode stored in a forum database during a migration, and writers use it to proof-read long guides before posting them. Because the preview runs in a sandboxed frame, scripts can never execute, even if a post contains suspicious markup.

Viewer vs. editor vs. converter

This page focuses on reading. If you want toolbar buttons to insert tags while you write, open the BBCode Editor. If you need the HTML source or want to turn existing HTML into BBCode, use the BBCode to HTML converter. For Markdown-based forums such as Discourse, try the Markdown Viewer.