Hey everyone!
I wanted to share something that’s been a real game-changer for me when working with forum content. If you’re like me and prefer writing in Markdown but need to post in BBCode format, I’ve got a solution that’ll save you tons of time.
The Problem We All Face
We’ve all been there - you write up a detailed post in Markdown (because let’s face it, Markdown is just cleaner and easier to write), but then you need to manually convert all that formatting to BBCode for your forum post.
Enter Pandoc + BBCode Writers
Pandoc is an incredible document converter that can transform between dozens of formats. While it doesn’t support BBCode out of the box, the community has created some fantastic custom writers to fill this gap.
A Standout Solution: pandoc-bbcode-phpbb
I recently discovered this excellent project: pandoc-bbcode-phpbb by elizagamedev, and it’s been fantastic for my workflow.
What makes it special:
- phpBB-specific: Designed specifically for phpBB’s flavor of BBCode, so the output works perfectly with most modern forums
- Comprehensive feature support: Handles emphasis, quotes (with attribution!), links, lists, tables, code blocks, and even footnotes
- Clean output: Focuses on producing properly formatted BBCode rather than human-readable intermediate text
- Easy to use: Simple one-line command gets the job done
Code: Select all
pandoc -t pandoc-bbcode-phpbb.lua -o output.bbcode input.mdCool features I love:
- Smart quotes: Regular blockquotes become BBCode quotes, and you can even do attributed quotes with @Username:
- Spoiler support: Use @spoiler to create spoiler blocks (though this isn’t standard phpBB)
- Table handling: Since BBCode doesn’t support tables, it converts them to ASCII tables that still look decent
- Footnote support: Footnotes get moved to the end of your post automatically
- Write my post in Markdown (using my favorite editor)
- Run the pandoc conversion
- Copy the BBCode output directly into the forum
- Make any final tweaks if needed
Worth Checking Out
If you’re doing any kind of regular forum posting and prefer Markdown, definitely give this a try. The project page has great documentation and examples, including a sample README converted to BBCode so you can see exactly what the output looks like.
Has anyone else found good tools for streamlining their forum posting workflow? I’d love to hear what’s working for others!
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Posted using content converted from Markdown to BBCode, naturally
