Tablizer

Convert LaTeX to BBCode Online

Paste a LaTeX table below, edit it if you need to, and get BBCode back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

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What LaTeX is

A LaTeX table is a tabular environment: a column specification, ampersands between cells and double backslashes at the end of each row.

Academic papers, theses and anything typeset with LaTeX or written in Overleaf.

What BBCode is

BBCode uses square-bracket tags. Table support is not universal, but table, tr, th and td are widely implemented.

phpBB, vBulletin and forum software descended from them.

What changes when you convert LaTeX to BBCode

The tabular body is read, rules are dropped, and escaped characters are unescaped. Text wrapped in textbf or emph is reduced to the text itself.

Check that your forum has table tags enabled. Many boards ship with them switched off.

What carries over from LaTeX to BBCode

LaTeX records 4 things about a table that BBCode has no way to hold.

LaTeX can hold a value that is itself a list or an object. BBCode has only flat cells, so nested values are flattened into one cell rather than being spread across columns.

A line break inside a cell ends the row in BBCode, so line breaks are replaced rather than carried through.

BBCode has no separate idea of a header, so the column names become an ordinary first row and nothing in the file marks them as different from the data.

Anything visual in the LaTeX - weight, alignment, colour, column widths - has no counterpart in BBCode and is dropped. The values are what survives.

The identifier 007 comes out of the BBCode as 007. Reading it as a number would have made it 7, and an id that changes value is worse than one that stays text.

The role "Analyst, data" survives with its comma, in one cell rather than split across two. That is the first thing to check in any converted table, and the usual place a BBCode file goes wrong.

The quotes around Jonah "Jo" Pryce are left as a plain quote character in the BBCode.

A worked example

Three rows of staff data, with an identifier that has a leading zero, a value containing a comma, a value containing quotes and one blank cell. Those are the four places formats disagree, so they are the four places to look.

LaTeX in
\begin{tabular}{lllll}
  \toprule
  id & name & role & started & hours \\
  \midrule
  007 & Halima Yusuf & Analyst, data & 2024-03-15 & 38.5 \\
  012 & Jonah "Jo" Pryce & Engineer & 2025-11-02 &  \\
  104 & Wei Chen & Manager & 2023-06-30 & 40 \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
BBCode out
[table]
  [tr][th]id[/th][th]name[/th][th]role[/th][th]started[/th][th]hours[/th][/tr]
  [tr][td]007[/td][td]Halima Yusuf[/td][td]Analyst, data[/td][td]2024-03-15[/td][td]38.5[/td][/tr]
  [tr][td]012[/td][td]Jonah "Jo" Pryce[/td][td]Engineer[/td][td]2025-11-02[/td][td][/td][/tr]
  [tr][td]104[/td][td]Wei Chen[/td][td]Manager[/td][td]2023-06-30[/td][td]40[/td][/tr]
[/table]

Questions

How do I convert LaTeX to BBCode?

Paste your LaTeX into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the BBCode from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

Why does my table not compile?

The usual cause is a missing package. Booktabs rules need \usepackage{booktabs} in the preamble. Switch the rules option off and the output uses plain \hline instead, which needs nothing.

Can I convert the BBCode back to LaTeX afterwards?

Not mechanically. BBCode keeps how the table looks, not what it held, so going back means reading the values off the page again. Keep the LaTeX if you will need it.

What happens to nested values?

BBCode has no nested cell, so a list or object inside a LaTeX value is flattened into a single cell rather than expanded into extra columns. Split it before converting if the parts need to be separate.

One of my cells has a line break in it - what happens?

A line break would end the row in BBCode, so it is replaced instead of carried through. The rest of the cell stays where it belongs.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.

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