Text Styling: Bold, Italics, Underline, and Color
BlackboardView supports a small set of simple styling tags you can type directly into your notes or blackboard text — no special formatting tools needed, just typing a few extra characters around the words you want to style.
These tags work in both your private Notes and your Blackboard content, including text you add live through a hotspot or write ahead of time in an answer reveal button.
Available Styles
| To do this | Type this |
|---|---|
| Bold | [b]your text[/b] |
| Italic | [i]your text[/i] |
| Underline | [u]your text[/u] |
| Superscript (small, raised text) | [sup]your text[/sup] |
| Subscript (small, lowered text) | [sub]your text[/sub] |
| Colored text | [color=red]your text[/color] |
Available Colors
For readability on a projector, colors are limited to a small, high-contrast set:
redyellowgreenwhite
Example: [color=green]Correct![/color]
Examples
Typing this:
[b]Newton's Second Law[/b]
F = ma, where m is measured in kg[sup]1[/sup]Produces bold text for “Newton’s Second Law,” and a small raised “1” after “kg” — useful for footnotes, exponents, or citations.
Typing this:
The [color=red]mitochondria[/color] is the powerhouse of the cell.Shows the word “mitochondria” in red, with the rest of the sentence in your normal text color.
You can also combine tags, like [b][color=yellow]Warning[/color][/b] for bold,
yellow text.
Where to Use These Tags
You can type these tags anywhere you’re entering text in BlackboardView:
- Directly in your lesson file, in either the notes or blackboard sections.
- Live, while teaching, when you type into a hotspot.
- In a pre-written answer reveal button, like
>[b]F = 6N[/b]<.
What If I Make a Mistake?
Don’t worry about getting the tags perfectly matched — BlackboardView is forgiving:
- If you close a tag that was never opened (for example, a stray
[/b]with no matching[b]before it), it’s simply ignored and the rest of your text displays normally. - If you open a tag but forget to close it (for example,
[b]with no[/b]later), the styling just continues for the rest of that text instead of causing an error.
This means a small typo in your tags won’t break your lesson or cause a confusing error — worst case, some extra text ends up bold or colored until the next tag or the end of the line.
Do the Tags Show Up on the Projector?
No — the tags themselves ([b], [/i], etc.) are never shown to your students. They
are simply instructions BlackboardView reads to decide how to display your text; what
your class actually sees is the finished, styled result.
What’s Next
- Using Hotspots — adding styled text live during class
- Answer Reveal Buttons — styling a revealed answer
- The Lesson File Format — the full syntax reference for writing lesson files