A powerful command-line tool to convert PHPBB forum MySQL dumps into well-formatted PDF and HTML documents. Perfect for archiving forums, creating backups, or preserving online communities.
- Full MySQL to SQLite Conversion - No external tools (AWK, sqlite3) required
- Multi-Language Support - English and German interface (easily extensible)
- Rich BBCode Processing - Handles quotes, images, lists, formatting, URLs
- Automatic Table Prefix Detection - Detects your forum's table prefix automatically
- Private Messages Support - Optional export of private messages with email addresses
- Forum Hierarchy - Preserves forum structure and organization
- Professional PDF Output:
- Cover page with statistics
- Table of contents
- Thread titles in page headers
- Styled quote boxes with color coding
- Green theme throughout
- Eye-Friendly HTML - Dark gray background for comfortable reading
- Smiley Support - Includes forum smileys when available
- Windows x64
- .NET Framework 4.8
- MySQL dump file from PHPBB forum
- Download the latest release
- Extract to a folder
- double click
build.bat - Place your MySQL dump file (
.sql) in the same folder - Run
PHPBB2PDF.exe
PHPBB2PDF.exeThe tool will guide you through:
- Language selection (de/en)
- MySQL to SQLite conversion (automatic)
- Table prefix detection (with option to override)
- PDF creation (yes/no)
- Private messages (yes/no)
- Smiley folder setup (optional pause to copy smileys)
Output is saved to ForumExport/ folder.
=== Forum to PDF/HTML Converter ===
SQL file found: myforum_backup.sql
Converting MySQL dump to SQLite...
Statistics:
Successful: 15420 statements
Errors: 0 statements
Detected table prefix: phpbb
Using prefix: phpbb
✓ HTML created: ForumExport/myforum_backup.html
✓ PDF created: ForumExport/myforum_backup.pdf
✓ 42 smiley files found in smileys folder
To include forum smileys in your export:
- The tool creates
ForumExport/smileys/folder - Copy smiley images from your PHPBB forum's
images/smilies/folder - Smileys will appear in HTML (PDF displays smiley paths as text)
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/phpbb2pdf.git
cd phpbb2pdf
dotnet build -c ReleaseThe executable will be in bin/Release/net48/win-x64/
- MySQL Conversion: Custom AWK-to-C# port for reliable MySQL→SQLite conversion
- BBCode Parser: Regex-based parser handling nested quotes, lists, formatting
- PDF Generation: QuestPDF library for high-quality PDF output
- Quote Rendering: Color-coded nested quotes (green, purple, blue, orange, pink)
- HTML Entities: Full decoding of
",:, etc.
"No .sql file found"
- Place your MySQL dump file in the same folder as the executable
"Table prefix 'xyz' incorrect"
- The tool auto-detects the prefix, but you can manually enter it when prompted
"PDF creation failed"
- The HTML is always created successfully
- Open the HTML in a browser and use Ctrl+P → "Save as PDF"
Private messages table not found
- Your forum may not have private messages enabled
- Answer "no" when asked to include private messages
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
This software uses the following libraries:
- License: MIT (Community License for non-commercial use)
- Website: https://www.questpdf.com/
- Purpose: PDF generation
- License: Public Domain
- Website: https://system.data.sqlite.org/
- Purpose: SQLite database operations
Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.
- Original MySQL-to-SQLite AWK script authors: @esperlu, @artemyk, @gkuenning, @dumblob
- PHPBB community for the forum software
- QuestPDF team for the excellent PDF library
- Linux/macOS support
- Additional languages (French, Spanish, etc.)
- Embedded smiley images in PDF
- Custom themes/styling options
- Direct database connection (without MySQL dump)
- Attachment export
For issues, questions, or feature requests, please open an issue on GitHub.
Created for forum archiving and preservation projects.