Formatting your posts

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
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.

• Simple Features (bold, italics, etc.)
• Colors
• Text Size
• Miscellaneous (font face, blinking, etc.)

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	Your 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	Your Text
\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)	Your text
\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{