# Introduction

The `Zend_Markup` component provides an extensible way for parsing text and rendering lightweight markup languages like BBcode. It is available as of Zend Framework version 1.10.

`Zend_Markup` uses a factory method to instantiate an instance of a renderer that extends `Zend_Markup_Renderer_Abstract`. The factory method accepts three arguments. The first one is the parser used to tokenize the text (e.g. BbCode). The second (optional) parameter is the renderer to use, HTML by default. Thirdly an array with options to use for the renderer can be specified.