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BBCode Link Generator

Generate BBCode links with bold, italic, underline, and color formatting. Copy-ready code for forums, signatures, and bulletin boards.

User Rating 0.0 ★★★★★
Total Usage 0 times
Category Code Utilities
Full URL including https://
Leave empty to display the raw URL
Formatting
#3366CC
Rare support — few parsers honor this
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About

BBCode (Bulletin Board Code) remains the primary markup language for phpBB, vBulletin, SMF, XenForo, and hundreds of legacy forum platforms that reject raw HTML for security reasons. A malformed [url] tag - a missing closing bracket, incorrect nesting order, or an unescaped character - renders your link dead. On high-traffic forums, broken signature links lose referral traffic permanently because moderators rarely notify you. This tool generates syntactically correct BBCode with proper tag nesting: [url] wraps the outermost layer, followed by [color], then [b], [i], and [u] in that order. It validates your URL against RFC 3986 structure before output.

Limitation: color rendering depends on the target forum's CSS whitelist. Some platforms strip [color] tags entirely or restrict allowed hex values. Test your output on the destination board before bulk-posting. Pro tip: many forums silently convert [url] tags with non-HTTP protocols to plain text - stick to https:// links.

bbcode link generator forum code bbcode link bulletin board code forum signature bbcode formatter

Formulas

The generator constructs BBCode by nesting formatting tags around the anchor text in a strict hierarchy. Incorrect nesting order causes rendering failures on most parsers.

output = [url=URL] + wrap(text, tags) + [/url]

The nesting order follows the BBCode parsing specification where outermost tags are processed first:

NestOrder = [url] → [color] → [b] → [i] → [u] → text

Where URL is the validated destination address conforming to RFC 3986 structure. text is the user-provided anchor string, sanitized to remove characters that conflict with BBCode bracket syntax. Each tag in the chain is only applied when its corresponding formatting option is enabled. If no anchor text is provided, the generator falls back to bare URL mode: [url]https://example.com[/url].

Reference Data

BBCode TagSyntaxDescriptionPlatform Support
[url][url=https://example.com]text[/url]Hyperlink with anchor textUniversal
[url] (bare)[url]https://example.com[/url]Hyperlink showing raw URLUniversal
[b][b]text[/b]Bold textUniversal
[i][i]text[/i]Italic textUniversal
[u][u]text[/u]Underlined textUniversal
[color][color=#FF0000]text[/color]Colored text (hex or name)Most platforms
[size][size=14]text[/size]Font size (px or relative)Most platforms
[img][img]url[/img]Embedded imageUniversal
[quote][quote=user]text[/quote]Block quote with attributionUniversal
[code][code]text[/code]Monospace code blockUniversal
[list][list][*]item[/list]Bulleted listUniversal
[s][s]text[/s]StrikethroughphpBB, vBulletin, XenForo
[center][center]text[/center]Centered textvBulletin, SMF
[email][email][email protected][/email]Mailto linkphpBB, vBulletin
[font][font=Arial]text[/font]Font family changevBulletin, XenForo
[spoiler][spoiler]text[/spoiler]Hidden content toggleXenForo, Discourse, SMF
[youtube][youtube]video_id[/youtube]Embedded YouTube videoXenForo, some phpBB
[table][table][tr][td]cell[/td][/tr][/table]Table structureXenForo, Discourse
[hr][hr]Horizontal rulevBulletin, SMF
[indent][indent]text[/indent]Text indentationvBulletin
[sup][sup]text[/sup]SuperscriptXenForo, Discourse

Frequently Asked Questions

Most forum platforms restrict URL protocols to http:// and https://. If your URL uses ftp://, magnet:, or a custom protocol, the parser strips the [url] tag and renders plain text. Additionally, some forums disable BBCode in certain sections (e.g., private messages). Verify the target board's BBCode permissions in its FAQ or posting guidelines.
The outermost tag should be [url], followed by [color], then [b], [i], and [u] closest to the text. Reversing this order - e.g., placing [b] outside [url] - causes many parsers to break the hyperlink or ignore the formatting. This generator enforces the correct nesting automatically.
Most BBCode parsers accept 6-digit hex codes (e.g., #FF5733) and standard CSS color names (e.g., red, blue). However, some platforms whitelist only named colors and reject hex values. Short hex codes like #F00 are not supported by phpBB. RGBA and HSL values are universally rejected. Test with a named color first if hex fails.
Square brackets [ and ] are reserved BBCode delimiters. Most parsers have no official escape mechanism. Workarounds include using Unicode lookalikes: ［ (U+FF3B) and ］ (U+FF3D), or HTML entities [ and ] on platforms that allow limited HTML. This tool does not auto-escape brackets in anchor text - avoid them if possible.
No. Discord uses Markdown, Slack uses mrkdwn (a proprietary variant), and Reddit uses its own Markdown flavor. BBCode is specific to traditional forum software: phpBB, vBulletin, SMF, XenForo, MyBB, Discourse (partial), and IP.Board. Using BBCode on Markdown-based platforms renders raw tag text.
Some forum software strips inline formatting from [quote] blocks to maintain readability. vBulletin in particular removes [color] and [size] tags inside quotes. The [url] tag itself is preserved, but visual formatting may be lost. This is a server-side behavior you cannot control from the posting side.