Help:Wikitext

Sections

Article sections in a page will follow that page's lead or introduction and, if there are four or more, the table of contents.

= Heading 1 =
== Heading 2 ==
=== Heading 3 ===
==== Heading 4 ====
===== Heading 5 =====
====== Heading 6 ======

----

Line breaks

Line breaks or newlines are used to add whitespace between lines, such as separating paragraphs.

• A line break that is visible in the content is inserted by pressing ↵ Enter twice.
• Pressing ↵ Enter once will place a line break in the markup, but it will not show in the rendered content, except when using list markup.
• Markup such as bold or italics will be terminated at a line break.
• Blank lines within indented wikitext should not be added, to avoid creating accessibility issues.

A single newline here
has no effect on the layout.

But an empty line starts a new paragraph, 
or ends a list or an indented part.

Templates for line breaks:

• {{pb}} creates a paragraph break, for example in indented wikitext.
• {{clear}} adds a break with styling, to clear floating elements. Often used to prevent text from flowing next to unrelated tables or images.

Unbulleted list:

• {{plainlist}} and {{unbulleted list}} both create an unbulleted list.

Indent text

Indentation is most commonly used on talk pages.

Indentation as used on talk pages:
:Each colon at the start of a line
::causes the line to be indented by three more character positions.
:::(The indentation persists
so long as no line break is used.)
:::Repeat the indentation at any line break.
::::Use an extra colon for each response.
:::::And so forth ...
::::::And so on ...
{{Outdent|::::::}}The {{template link|outdent}} template can give a visual indicator that we're deliberately cancelling the indent (6 levels here)

Blockquote

When there is a need for separating a block of text. This is useful for (as the name says) inserting blocks of quoted (and cited) text.

Normal text
<blockquote>
The '''blockquote''' tag will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does.
</blockquote>
Normal text

This uses an HTML tag; template {{quote}} results in the same render.

Center text

<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">Centered text</div>

The template {{center}} uses the same markup. To center a table, see Help:Table § Centering tables. Please do not use <center>...</center> tags, as it is obsolete.

Align text to right

You can align content in a separate container:

<div style="text-align: right; direction: ltr; margin-left: 1em;">Text on the right</div>

Or; make the text float around it:

<div class="floatright">Text on the right</div>

{{stack|Text on the right}}

Lists

Do not leave blank lines between items in a list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the MediaWiki software to interpret each item as beginning a new list.

* Item1
* Item2
* Item3
* Item4
** Sub-item 4 a)
*** Sub-item 4 a) 1.
**** Sub-item 4 a) 1. i)
**** Sub-item 4 a) 1. ii)
** Sub-item 4 b)
* Item5

# Item1
# Item2
# Item3
# Item4
## Sub-item 1
### Sub-sub-item
#### Sub-sub-sub-item
## Sub-item 2
# Item5

; Term: Definition1

; Term
: Definition1
: Definition2
: Definition3
: Definition4

Retaining newlines and spaces

The MediaWiki software suppresses single newlines and converts lines starting with a space to preformatted text in a dashed box. HTML suppresses multiple spaces. It is often desirable to retain these elements for poems, lyrics, mottoes, oaths and the like. The Poem extension adds HTML-like <poem>...</poem> tags to maintain newlines and spaces. These tags may be used inside other tags such as <blockquote>...</blockquote>; the template {{poemquote}} provides a convenient shorthand. CSS styles may be applied to this tag, e.g.: <poem style="margin-left: 2em;">.

<poem>
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
  A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
  Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
  With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
</poem>

Poems and their translation can be presented side by side, and the language can be indicated with lang="xx". Following the last side-by-side block, {{Clear|left}} must be used to cancel "float:left;" and to re-establish normal flow. Note that this method does not require a table and its columns to achieve the side-by-side presentation.

Markup

<poem lang="fr" style="float:left;">Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.</poem>
<poem style="margin-left:2em; float:left;">Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John,
Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.</poem>{{Clear|left}}

Renders as

Text formatting

To ''italicize text'', put two consecutive apostrophes on each side of it. Note that these must be "straight" apostrophes; "curly" apostrophes (‘ and ’) will not work.

Three apostrophes each side will '''bold the text'''.

Five consecutive apostrophes on each side (two for italics plus three for bold) produces '''''bold italics'''''.

'''''Italic and bold formatting''''' works correctly only within a single line.

For text as {{smallcaps|small caps}}, use the template {{tl|smallcaps}}.

function <code>int m2()</code> is nice.

<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
#include <iostream>
int m2 (int ax, char *p_ax) {
  std::cout <<"Hello World!";
  return 0;
}</syntaxhighlight>

#include <iostream>
int m2 (int ax, char *p_ax) {
  std::cout <<"Hello World!";
  return 0;
}

Use <small>small text</small> only
when necessary.

To match, for example, the font-size used in an [[Help:Visual file markup#Caption|image caption]], the "small" tag can also be used to
<small style="font-size:87%;">reduce a text's font-size to 87%</small>.

Better not use <big>big text</big>, unless <small>it's <big>within</big> small</small> text.

Mr. Smith or 400 km/h

Mary {{pad|4.0em}} had a little lamb.

Special characters

Special characters can often be displayed using numeric character references or character entity references. See Character encodings in HTML for more information. For example, À and À both render À (A-grave). Percent-encoding can't be used, as it works only in URLs.

À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ

Ç È É Ê Ë

Ì Í Î Ï Ñ

Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Œ

Ù Ú Û Ü Ÿ ß

à á â ã ä å æ ç

è é ê ë

ì í î ï ñ

ò ó ô õ ö ø œ

ù ú û ü ÿ

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Main page: Help:WikiHiero syntax

WikiHiero is a software extension that renders Egyptian hieroglyphs as PNG images using <hiero> HTML-like tags.

Example:

Markup	Renders as
<hiero>P2</hiero>

x<sub>1</sub> x<sub>2</sub> x<sub>3</sub> or

x&#8320; x&#8321; x&#8322; x&#8323; x&#8324;

x&#8325; x&#8326; x&#8327; x&#8328; x&#8329;

x<sup>1</sup> x<sup>2</sup> x<sup>3</sup> or

x&#8304; x&sup1; x&sup2; x&sup3; x&#8308;

x&#8309; x&#8310; x&#8311; x&#8312; x&#8313;

&epsilon;<sub>0</sub> = 8.85 &times; 10<sup>&minus;12</sup> C&sup2; / J m

1 [[hectare]] = 1 E+4 m&sup2;

Mathematical characters and formulae

<math>2x \times 4y \div 6z + 8 - \frac {y}{z^2} = 0</math>

{{math|2''x'' &times; 4''y'' &divide; 6''z'' + 8 &minus; {{sfrac|''y''|''z''<sup>2</sup>}} {{=}} 0}}

<math>\sin 2\pi x + \ln e</math>

{{math|sin 2&amp;pi;''x'' + ln ''e''}}

It follows that {{math|''x''<sup>2</sup> &ge; 0}} for real {{mvar|x}}.

<math display=block>\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{x^n}{n!}</math>

Wikilinks

Wikilinks are used in wikitext markup to produce internal links between pages. You create wikilinks by putting double square brackets around text designating the title of the page you want to link to. Thus, [[Texas]] will be rendered as Texas. Optionally, you can use a vertical bar (|) to customize the link title. For example, typing [[Texas|Lone Star State]] will produce Lone Star State, a link that is displayed as "Lone Star State" but in fact links to Texas.

London has [[public transport]].

Link to this page: "[[Help:Wikitext]]" will appear only as bold text.

Create a new page

• To create a new page:
  1. Edit any page.
  2. Enter a redlink wikilink: [[page name]].
  3. Preview or save.
  4. Activate the link you just made. The new page will open for editing.
• For more information, see starting an article and check out Wikipedia's naming conventions.
• Please link to your new article from at least one other article.

Create an alias for a page

• Create an alias for any page by creating a Redirect from one page name to another.
• First create a new page whose page name is the name of the alias. That is the redirect.
• On the first line of the new redirect page, use the syntax shown in the table below. For example, US is a redirect.
• It is possible to redirect to a section. For example, a redirect to United States#History will redirect to the History section of the United States page.

Link to another namespace

• The full page name should be included in double square brackets.

Link to the same article in another language (interlanguage links)

After the launch of Wikidata, interlanguage links are now added through it. Links in articles should exist only in special cases, for example when an article in one language has two articles in another language.

• To link to a corresponding page in another language, use the form: [[language code:Foreign title]].
• It is recommended interlanguage links be placed at the very end of the article.
• Interlanguage links are NOT visible within the formatted article, but instead appear as language links on the sidebar (to the left) under the menu section "languages".

• NOTE: To create an inline link (a clickable link within the text) to any foreign language article, see Help:Interlanguage links#Inline interlanguage links and consider the usage notes.

[[es:Plancton]]

[[fr:Plancton]]
[[de:Plankton]]
[[ru:Планктон]]
[[simple:Plankton]]

Interwiki link

• Interwiki links link to any page on other wikis. Interwikimedia links link to other Wikimedia wikis.
• Note that interwikimedia links use the internal link style, with double square brackets.
• See Meta-Wiki:Interwiki map for the list of shortcuts; if the site you want to link to is not on the list, use an external link.
• See also Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects.

Categories

• To put an article in a category, place a link like [[Category:Example]] into the article. As with interlanguage links, placing these links at the end of the article is recommended.
• To link to a category page without putting the article into the category, use a colon prefix (":Category") in the link.

External links

• Single-square brackets indicate an external link. Note the use of a space (not a pipe |) to separate the URL from the link text in a named link. Square brackets may be used as normal punctuation when not linking to anything – [like this].
• A URL must begin with a supported URI scheme: https:// (preferably) and http:// will be supported by all browsers; irc://, ircs://, ftp://, news://, mailto:, and gopher:// will require a plugin or an external application. IPv6 addresses in URLs are currently not supported.
• A URL containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are percent encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20. Encoding can be achieved by:

• Use the link button on the enhanced editing toolbar to encode the link; this tool will add the bracket markup and the linked text, which may not always be desirable.
• Or manually encode the URL by replacing these characters:

• Or use the {{urlencode:}} magic word. See Help:Magic words in the MediaWiki documentation for more details.

• See Wikipedia:External links for style issues, and Category:External link file type templates for indicating the file type of an external link with an icon.

Miscellaneous

Signing comments

• The tilde character (~) is used when signing a comment on a talk page. Your username provides a link to your user page.

Linking to old revisions of pages, diffs, and specific history pages

• The external link function is mainly used for these. Open an old revision or diff, and copy the URL from the address bar, pasting it where you want it.

• You can also use an internal diff link. Unlike the template {{diff}}, this kind of link can even be used in edit summaries.

• If the diff intended to be shown is between an immediately previous revision, the first parameter can be dropped.

• For an old revision, you can also use a permalink. Though here only the main text is guaranteed to be retained (images and templates will be shown as they are today, not as they were at the time).

What links here, and recent changes linked

• The following markup can be used. For example, for the article Beetroot:

User edits

• Link to a user's contributions page.

Coloring and highlighting text

• Using the {{Color}} and {{Font color}} templates:

Example text

The {{xt}} family of templates can be used to highlight example text. These templates do not work in mainspace—that is, in regular articles—they are intended for use on project pages (such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style), help pages, and user pages.

What you type	What you get
This is {{xt|a correct example}} for comparison {{tick}}	This is a correct example for comparison Y
This is {{!xt|an incorrect example}} for contrast {{Xmark}}	This is an incorrect example for contrast N
This is {{mxt|in monospace}} for comparison	This is in monospace for comparison
This is {{!mxt|in monospace}} for contrast	This is in monospace for contrast
This is {{bxt|in bold}} for comparison	This is in bold for comparison
This is {{!bxt|in bold}} for contrast	This is in bold for contrast

Show deleted or inserted text

• When editing regular Wikipedia articles, just make your changes, and do not mark them up in any special way, except when the article itself discusses deleted or inserted content, such as an amendment to a statute:
  • to indicate deleted content, use <del>...</del>
  • to indicate inserted content, use <ins>...</ins>
• This also applies to changing one's own talk page comments.

Strikethrough

The {{Strikethrough}} template marks up an inline span of text with the <s>...</s> tag. This is usually rendered visually by drawing a horizontal line through it. Outside of articles, it can be used to mark something as no longer accurate or relevant without removing it from view. Do not use it, however, to indicate document edits. For that, use the <del>...</del> tag instead. See § Show deleted or inserted text for details.

The {{Strikethrough}} template and <s>...</s> tag are for inline content only; to strike out a block of text, such as a multi-line talk page post, use either {{Strikethroughdiv}} or <div style="text-decoration: line-through"></div> to render the entire block with strikethrough markup.

Nowiki

There are two types of nowiki markup, which operate in different ways:

• The <nowiki>...</nowiki> tag pair encloses a section of wiki markup, which is then displayed as normal text.
• The empty <nowiki /> tag interrupts the wiki markup and causes it to display as normal text.

Both forms neutralize the rendering of wiki markup, as shown in the examples below. For example, the characters that have wiki markup meaning at the beginning of a line (*, #, ;, and :) can be rendered in normal text. Editors can normalize the font of characters trailing a wikilink, which would otherwise appear in the wikilink font. And newlines added to wikitext for readability can be ignored.

Note to template editors: tag <nowiki> works only on its source page, not the target.

# Ordered list

<nowiki /># Ordered list

A [[micro-]]second.

A [[micro-]]<nowiki />second.

a<nowiki>

</nowiki>b

'<nowiki />'Italics' markup'<nowiki />'

<nowiki>[[Example]]</nowiki>

<nowiki><!-- revealed --></nowiki>

The rest of the section consists of simple, live examples showing how a single nowiki tag escapes entire linkage structures, beyond [[wikilink]] and {{template}}:

[[ fullpagename | label ]]

{{ pagename | parameter }}

[[ fullpagename | {{ pagename }} ]]

{{ pagename | [[ fullpagename ]] }}

{{ pagename | {{ pagename }} }}

Unless you use the two "balanced" nowiki tags, troubleshooting strip marker errors and template parameter-handling inconsistencies is a risk. Also, a rendering error may arise when two [[...]] square brackets are on the same line, or two {{...}} curly brackets are in the same section, but only when the two have the nowiki markup placed inconsistently.

[[ wp:pagename | page name ]]
[<nowiki />[ wp:pagename | page name ]]
[[<nowiki /> wp:pagename | page name ]]
[[ wp:pagename <nowiki />| page name ]]
[[ wp:pagename | page name ]<nowiki />]

[[ wp: {{ 1x | pagename }} ]]
[[ wp: {<nowiki />{ 1x | pagename }} ]]
[[ wp: {{<nowiki /> 1x | pagename }} ]]
[[ wp: {{ 1x <nowiki />| pagename }} ]]

[[ wp: pagename | {{ 1x | label }} ]]
[[ wp: pagename <nowiki />| {{ 1x <nowiki />| label }} ]]
&lt;nowiki>[[ wp: pagename | {{ 1x | label }} ]] &lt;/nowiki>

{<nowiki />{ val | u=&gt; [[ms]] | 49082 }}
{{<nowiki /> val | u=&gt; [[ms]] | 49082 }}
{{ val <nowiki />| u=&gt; [[ms]] | 49082 }}
{{ val | u= &gt; [[ms]] | 49082 }<nowiki />}
{{ val | u= &gt; [[ ms ]<nowiki />] | 49082 }}

{{ #ifeq: inYes | inYes | outYes | outNo }}
{<nowiki />{ #ifeq: inYes | inYes | outYes | outNo }}
{{<nowiki /> #ifeq: inYes | inYes | outYes | outNo }}
{{ #ifeq<nowiki />: inYes | inYes | outYes | outNo }}
{{ #ifeq: inYes | inYes | outYes | outNo }<nowiki />}

 1. __HIDDENCAT__
 2. __HIDDENCAT<nowiki />__

<span style=color:blue> Blue </span>
<<nowiki />span style=color:blue> Blue <<nowiki />/span>
<section end=la<nowiki />bel />
<<nowiki />section end=label />

{{ tag | nowiki }}
<code>&amp;lt; nowiki>...&amp;lt;/ nowiki ></code>
<code><<nowiki />nowiki>...<<nowiki />/ nowiki ></code>

{{ tag | nowiki | s }}
<code>&amp;lt; nowiki /></code>
<code>&lt;&lt;nowiki /> nowiki /></code>
<code>&lt;nowiki>&lt; nowiki />&lt;/nowiki></code>

1<nowiki>2<nowiki>3</nowiki>4</nowiki>
<nowiki>{{!}}<nowiki></nowiki>{{!}}</nowiki>

Pre

<pre> is a parser tag that emulates the HTML <pre> tag. It defines preformatted text that is displayed in a fixed-width font and is enclosed in a dashed box. HTML-like and wiki markup tags are escaped, spaces and line breaks are preserved, but HTML elements are parsed.

<pre><!--Comment-->

[[wiki]] markup &amp;</pre>

<!--Comment-->

[[wiki]] markup &amp;

As <pre> is a parser tag, it escapes wikitext and HTML tags. This can be prevented with the use of <includeonly></includeonly> within the <pre>, making it act more like its HTML equivalent:

<pre<includeonly></includeonly>><!--Comment-->

[[wiki]] markup &amp;</pre>

[[wiki]] markup &

Invisible HTML <pre> tags can also be inserted by preceding text with a space character, like:

wiki markup &

Alternatively, consider using {{pre}} template or <syntaxhighlight lang="text">...</syntaxhighlight>.