Help:Editing
In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.
If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox.
Sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
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Start your sections with header lines: Note: Single equal signs give the highest level heading, like the page title; usually projects have the convention not to use them.
New section Subsection Sub-subsection |
== New section == === Subsection === ==== Sub-subsection ==== |
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Newline: A single newline has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. (<p> disables this paragraphing until </p> or the end of the section) (in Cologne Blue two newlines and a div tag give just one newline; in the order newline, div tag, newline, the result is two newlines) |
A single newline has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. |
| You can break lines without starting a new paragraph. Sufficient as wikitext code is <br>, the XHTML code <br /> is not needed, the system produces this code. |
You can break lines<br> without starting a new paragraph. |
marks the end of the list.
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* Lists are easy to do: ** start every line with a star *** more stars means deeper levels *A newline *in a list marks the end of the list. *Of course *you can *start again. |
marks the end of the list.
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# Numbered lists are also good ## very organized ## easy to follow #A newline #in a list marks the end of the list. #New numbering starts #with 1. |
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* You can even do mixed lists *# and nest them *#* like this<br>or have newlines<br>inside lists |
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* You can also **break lines<br>inside lists<br>like this |
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; Definition list : list of definitions ; item : the item's definition |
A manual newline starts a new paragraph.
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: A colon indents a line or paragraph. A manual newline starts a new paragraph. |
IF a line of plain text starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* program source code
* ASCII art;
* chemical structures;
WARNING If you make it wide,
you force the whole page to be wide and
hence less readable. Never start ordinary lines with spaces. |
IF a line of plain text starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* program source code
* ASCII art;
* chemical structures; |
<center>Centered text.</center> |
|
| A horizontal dividing line: above
and below. (However, in most cases a section header is more useful. The horizontal dividing line should only be used if what follows is logically part of the same section; otherwise that part would be hidden in the TOC.) |
A horizontal dividing line: above ---- and below. |
Summarizing the effect of a single newline: no effect in general, but it ends a list item or indented part; thus changing some text into a list item, or indenting it, is more cumbersome if it contains newlines, they have to be removed; see also Don't use line breaks.
Links, URLs
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
Sue is reading the video policy.
Thus the link above is to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_policy, which is the page with the name "Video policy". |
Sue is reading the [[video policy]]. |
|
Link to a section on a page, e.g. List_of_cities_by_country#Morocco; when section linking does not work the link is treated as link to the page, i.e. to the top; this applies for:
|
[[List_of_cities_by_country#Morocco]]. |
| Link target and link label are different: answers.
(This is called a piped link). |
Same target, different name: [[User:Larry Sanger|answers]] |
| Endings are blended into the link: official positions, genes |
Endings are blended into the link: [[official position]]s, [[gene]]s |
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Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: kingdom. Automatically hide namespace: Village pump. The server fills in the part after the | when you save the page. Next time you open the edit box you will see the expanded piped link. A preview interprets the abbreviated form correctly, but does not expand it yet in the edit box. Press Save and again Edit, and you will see the expanded version. The same applies for the following feature. |
Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: [[kingdom (biology)|]]. Automatically hide namespace: [[Wikipedia:Village pump|]]. |
| When adding a comment to a Talk page,
you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name: or four for user name plus date/time:
|
When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name: : ~~~ or four for user name plus date/time: : ~~~~ |
The weather in London is a page that doesn't exist yet.
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[[The weather in London]] is a page that doesn't exist yet. |
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Redirect one article title to another by putting text like this in its first line. |
#REDIRECT [[United States]] |
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A link to the page on the same subject in another language or, more generally, to a page on another wiki: fr:Wikipédia:Aide. For more info see m:Help:Interwiki linking. |
[[fr:Wikipédia:Aide]], [[:fr:Wikipédia:Aide]] |
| "What links here" and "Related changes" can be linked as: Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia:How to edit a page and Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:How to edit a page |
[[Special:Whatlinkshere/ Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] and [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/ Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] |
| External links: Nupedia, [1] | External links: [http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia], [http://www.nupedia.com] |
| Or just give the URL: http://www.nupedia.com. | Or just give the URL: http://www.nupedia.com. |
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To link to books, you can use ISBN links. ISBN 0123456789X See Help:ISBN links |
ISBN 0123456789X |
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Link to Request for Comments: RFC 123 (URL specified in mediawiki:Rfcurl) |
RFC 123 |
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To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, use a "media" link.
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[[media:Sg_mrob.ogg|Sound]] |
| Use links for dates, so everyone can set their own display order. Use Special:Preferences to change your own date display setting. | [[July 20]], [[1969]] , [[20 July]] [[1969]] and [[1969]]-[[07-20]]will all appear as 20 July 1969 if you set your date display preference to 1 January 2001. |
Images
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
A picture: Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia
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A picture: [[Image:Wiki.png]] or, with alternative text (strongly encouraged) [[Image:Wiki.png|Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia]] Web browsers render alternative text when not displaying an image -- for example, when the image isn't loaded, or in a text-only browser, or when spoken aloud. See Alternative text for images for help on choosing alternative text. See Extended image syntax for more options. |
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Clicking on an uploaded image displays a description page, which you can also link directly to: Image:Wiki.png |
[[:Image:Wiki.png]] |
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To include links to images shown as links instead of drawn on the page, use a "media" link.
|
[[media:Tornado.jpg|Image of a Tornado]] |
Character formatting
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Emphasize, strongly, very strongly.
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''Emphasize'', '''strongly''', '''''very strongly'''''. |
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You can also write italic and bold if the desired effect is a specific font style rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulas:
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You can also write <i>italic</i> and <b>bold</b> if the desired effect is a specific font style rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulas: :<b>F</b> = <i>m</i><b>a</b> |
| A typewriter font for technical terms. | A typewriter font for <tt>technical terms</tt>. |
| You can use small text for captions. | You can use <small>small text</small> for captions. |
| You can and underline new material. |
You can <strike>strike out deleted material</strike> and <u>underline new material</u>. |
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Umlauts and accents: (See MediaWiki User's Guide: Creating special characters) |
è é ê ë ì í À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ |
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Punctuation: |
¿ ¡ « » § ¶ † ‡ • - – — |
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Commercial symbols: |
™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤ |
| Subscript: x2 Superscript: x2 or x²
|
Subscript: x<sub>2</sub>
Superscript: x<sup>2</sup> or x²
or in projects with the templates sub and sup:
Subscript: x{{sub|2}}
Superscript: x{{sup|2}}
ε<sub>0</sub> =
8.85 × 10<sup>−12</sup>
C² / J m.
1 [[hectare]] = [[1 E4 m²]]
|
| Greek characters: α β γ δ ε ζ |
α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω |
|
Math characters: |
∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ℵ ø ∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ → ↔ ↑ |
| x2 ≥ 0 true. | <i>x</i><sup>2</sup> ≥ 0 true. |
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Complicated formulae:
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<math>\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{x^n}{n!}</math>
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For comparison for the following examples: arrow → italics link |
arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
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Use <nowiki> to suppress interpretation of wiki markup, but interpret character references and remove newlines and multiple spaces: arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
<nowiki>arrow → ''italics'' [[link]]</nowiki> |
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Use <pre> to suppress interpretation of wiki markup and keep newlines and multiple spaces, and get typewriter font, but interpret character references: arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
<nowiki><pre>arrow → ''italics'' [[link]]</nowiki> |
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Use leading space on each line to keep newlines and multiple spaces, and get typewriter font: arrow → italics link |
arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
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Use typewriter font: arrow → italics link |
<tt>arrow →</tt> <tt>''italics''</tt> <tt>[[link]]</tt> |
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Show character references: → |
&rarr; |
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Commenting page source:
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