# vb codes explained **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [December 14, 2000, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515 "2000-12-14T10:33:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/1 "2000-12-14T10:33:42Z")
I remember someone asking for a tutorial on the vB codes on the board. Well, hopefully, these will all be clearer. Here we go… ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/2 "2000-12-14T10:34:59Z")
**bold words** _italic words_ underlined words ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/3 "2000-12-14T10:36:29Z")
> [@](#): > > he said this [/quote] by itself makes a seperator line ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/4 "2000-12-14T10:37:35Z")
```auto fixed font typing ``` ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/5 "2000-12-14T10:43:39Z")
[title or description of page](http://www.theonion.com) Reminder: You have to have the quotes. There should be no spaces left or right of the = sign. Also, the URL has to be complete, don’t leave off the **http://** part on it. You can also just type the **complete** URL on the reply window and the board will automatically link the link, if you check the option “ **Automatically parse URLs** ” ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/6 "2000-12-14T10:46:51Z")
[ul] [li]part one [_]part two [/ul] [_]by itself makes a dot[/li] Reminder : Don’t forget to put the closing list code in or else the rest of the post under it will be double indented. ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/7 "2000-12-14T10:52:13Z")
Ordered lists : Replace # with these to get the effects: # with **A** makes a list from A to Z [list=A] [li]part one part two [/list=A][/li] # with **1** makes a list starting with 1 [list=1] [li]part one part two [/list=1][/li] Reminder: don’t forget the **=A** or **=1** part in the closing code, or else the lists will be stair-stepped. ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/8 "2000-12-14T10:54:41Z")
words [sub]subscriped words[/sub] words [sup]superscripted words[/sup] words [sub]You can also use these codes if you want some parts of the text to be a font size smaller.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/9 "2000-12-14T11:00:27Z")
[thebiglou@hotmail.com](mailto:thebiglou@hotmail.com) or [name](mailto:thebiglou@hotmail.com) That should be it for the codes. Oh! One more thing… ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/10 "2000-12-14T11:03:27Z")
🙂 ☹ 😃 😛 :o 😉 ;j :eek: 😕 :mad: :rolleyes: 🆒 :wally That should be everything, I hope. Louie ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/11 "2000-12-14T11:24:39Z")
Good stuff Louie. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/12 "2000-12-14T16:49:58Z")
Thank you thank you thank you! Of course I want to incorporate this into our updated FAQ. Giving you proper credit, too. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/13 "2000-12-14T17:42:55Z")
Thanks, Louie! I do wanna comment though, that you can make _nested_ lists, too. [list=1] [li]Fruit[/li][list=a] [li]Oranges[/li][ul] [li]Valencia[/li][li]Navel[/li][/ul] [li]Apples[/li][ul] [li]Macintosh[/li][li]Granny Smith[/li][/ul] [li]Bananas[/li][/list=a] [li]Vegetables[/li][list=a] [li]Corn[/li][li]Peas[/li][li]Carrots[/li][/list=a] [li]Meat[/li][list=a] [li]Beef[/li][li]Veal[/li][li]Lamb[/li][/list=a] [/list=1] ---
**Author:** ![barflyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@barflyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barflyer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/14 "2000-12-14T20:17:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Louie \* > \*\*words [sub]subscriped words[/sub] words [sup]superscripted words[/sup] words > > [sub]You can also use these codes if you want some parts of the text to be a font size smaller.[/sub] \*\* Here’s a trick to show coding tips in plain text and also as interpreted. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Uart \* > To update your signature, click the “Profile” icon at the top of the page. > Then put stuff into the signature slot. > You can use \*\* [b\*\*] to bold **and [sub][sub**][/sub] to shrink, and :\*\*) for :), etc. \*\* What **Uart** did was add an “empty” pair of commands to break up the real commands being displayed. He used **[i][/i]** His quote above was coded like this: You can use [b\*\*] [b[i\*\*][/i\*\*]] to bold [/b\*\*]and [sub\*\*][sub[i\*\*][/i\*\*]][/sub\*\*] to shrink, and :[i\*\*][/i\*\*]) for :), etc. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/15 "2000-12-14T20:32:16Z")
Apart from the “empty pair” trick, you should be able to just use HTML escapes for literal syntax, too - [ is [. Let’s see if that works. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/16 "2000-12-14T20:35:52Z")
No, it doesn’t. vBulletin escapes the ampersands for you. My apologies, and I withdraw the suggestion. Somebody might point out to vBulletin that they honor HTML character escapes in their preview feature, but not in the final article. ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/17 "2000-12-14T22:52:18Z")
You all are certainly welcome. 🙂 Hey, that’s a pretty nifty trick, **bartflyer** ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/18 "2000-12-14T22:54:12Z")
…er, **barflyer**. sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/19 "2000-12-16T10:40:09Z")
bump ---
**Author:** ![mouthbreather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515/20 "2000-12-19T18:41:49Z")
bump [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vb-codes-explained/45515.md?page=2)