Formed activated carbon was prepared by extruding of a mixture of fine blue-coke and organic additives and subsequent carbonization and steam activation. The conditions for preparation of activated carbon were optimized with orthogonal experiments taking carbonization temperature, activation temperature, activation time and water vapor flow as influential factors, and iodine number, compressive strength and yield as indexes. The results show that the iodine number is 1157.4mg/g, the compressive strength is 9.9MPa and yield is 34.15%, when the activated carbon produced at the optimum conditions of 450 degrees C carbonization temperature, 900 degrees C activation temperature, 90min activation time and water vapor flow of 50mL/h. Meanwhile, the nitrogen adsorption isotherm and morphology are analyzed, finding the activated carbon with developed mesopores. The function groups, mainly hydroxyl and carbonyl group on activated carbon, are found by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The microcrystalline structure and the degree of graphitization of the formed activated carbon are smaller than fine blue-coke by X-ray diffraction analysis. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.