A powerful formatting language developed specifically for this application allows you to format your posts without knowledge of HTML. This formatting language is easy for both HTML users and non-HTML users to learn quickly. There are examples after each major section.
Contents
- Introduction to Formatting
- Text Formatting
- Special Characters
- Other Formatting
- Frequently Made Mistakes
- Simple Features (bold, italics, etc.)
- Colors
- Text Size
- Miscellaneous (font face, blinking, etc.)
- All formatting tags have the following structure:
- \code{Arguments or text to be formatted}
The code is a keyword to invoke the desired formatting (for example, green to produce green text and b to produce bold text). Formatting tags are case sensitive. Formatting tags may be nested within other tags. A comprehensive list of available formatting tags is available in this document (although the system administrator can turn off certain tags).
To use formatting, enter the appropriate code(s) in the text of your message or subject line. When you preview your post, your formatting will be displayed so you can verify that you have entered your tags properly.
| Tag | Description | Example |
| \b{Your Text} | Bold Text | Your Text |
| \i{Your Text} | Italics Text | Your Text |
| \+{Your Text} | Superscript Text | [Reference]Your Text |
| \-{Your Text} | Subscript Text | [Reference]Your Text |
| \fixed{Your Text} | Fixed Width Text | Your Text |
| \u{Your Text} | Underlined Text | Your Text |
| \c{Your Text} | Centered Text |
Examples
| Input: | \b{Show me some bold} and \i{italics text}. | |
| Output: | Show me some bold and italics text. | |
| Input: | H\-{2}O has a density of 1.000×10\+{-3} kg/mL. | |
| Output: | H2O has a density of 1.000×10-3 kg/mL. |
| Tag | Description | Example |
| \red{Your Text} | Red Text | Your Text |
| \orange{Your Text} | Orange Text | Your Text |
| \yellow{Your Text} | Yellow Text | Your Text |
| \green{Your Text} | Green Text | Your Text |
| \cyan{Your Text} | Cyan Text | Your Text |
| \blue{Your Text} | Blue Text | Your Text |
| \purple{Your Text} | Purple Text | Your Text |
| \white{Your Text} | White Text | Your Text |
| \gray{Your Text} | Gray Text | Your Text |
| \black{Your Text} | Black Text | Your Text |
Example
| Input: | \red{Red} and \green{green} are pretty colors. | |
| Output: | Red and green are pretty colors. |
| Tag | Description | Example |
| \2{Your Text} | Largest (size +2 text) | Your Text |
| \1{Your Text} | Large (size +1 text) | Your Text |
| \0{Your Text} | Average (size +0 text) | Your Text |
| \-1{Your Text} | Smaller (size -1 text) | Your Text |
| \-2{Your Text} | Smallest (size -2 text) | Your Text |
| Input: | \2{You} \1{can} \0{size} \-1{your} \-2{text}. | |
| Output: | You can size your text. |
| Tag | Description | Example |
| \greek{Your Text} | Greek (symbol) text | Your Text |
| \strike{Your Text} | Strikethrough | |
| \blink{Your Text} | Blinking text | Your Text |
| \rgb{Hex_code,Your Text} | Color text by hex code | Your Text: aaaa00 color |
| \font{Font_face,Your Text}* | Font face | Your Text |
| \char{ASCII code} | Character (0-255) | Ê (ASCII code=202) |
| \indent{Your text} | Indented (blockquoted) |
|
| \quote{Your text} | Quoted | Quote: Your text |
* = see note about escaping commas under “Special Characters”
| Input: | \rgb{5aaa7c,This is a strange color}. | |
| Output: | This is a strange color. | |
| Input: | \font{Times New Roman,This is in a different font}. | |
| Output: | This is in a different font. | |
| Input: | \font{Comic Sans MS\,Tahoma,Note the escaped comma here}. | |
| Output: | Note the escaped comma here. |
- Modern browsers support the display of special characters, such as the “degrees” symbol (°). There are a number of available characters.
| Tag | Result | Tag | Result | |
| \ch{->} | ® | \ch{ |