# Format Text using buttons NOT tags

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/format-text-using-buttons-not-tags/45075>\
**Category:** web dev\
**Created:** [March 10, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/format-text-using-buttons-not-tags/45075 "2004-03-10T18:57:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![imagined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a87d85/32.png) [@imagined](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/imagined)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/format-text-using-buttons-not-tags/45075/1 "2004-03-10T18:57:20Z")

</div>

I’m currently working on a CMS, and want to give the users the option to bold, italize, underline, change font style, font size, font color and to parse URLs in what’s inside a TEXTAREA.

The users know NOTHING about HTML and tags.

I want to give users the option to format text just like in Hotmail or in KirupaForum you can format the text using buttons and drop menus.

How can I do this? :puzzle:
