Help:Format a page

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Most text formatting is usually done with Wiki markup, so people don't have to learn HTML.

Wiki markup

Writing for wikipedia articles is a bit different from writing on a standard word processor. Instead of a strict "what you see is what you get" approach (also called WYSIWYG by fans of computer jargon), wiki uses simple text codes for formatting. The approach is similar to that used in writing HTML for web pages, but the codes are simpler.

The wiki can accept some HTML tags directly, but most people use the built-in MediaWiki markup language, which is designed for ease of editing.

Basic Formatting

Bold and italics

The most commonly used wiki tags are bold and italics. Bolding and italicizing is done by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):

  • ''italics'' is rendered as italics. (2 apostrophes on either side)
  • '''bold''' is rendered as bold. (3 apostrophes on either side)
  • '''''bolded italics''''' is rendered as bolded italics. (2 + 3 = 5 apostrophes on either side)

It is a Wikipedia convention to boldface the subject of an article when it is first mentioned in the article. For example, the article Sikhism starts:

Sikhism, the youngest of the world religions, is barely five hundred years old. Its founder, Guru Nanak, was born in 1469....

If there are alternatives to the title the same applies, for example Naam Japo starts:

Naam Japo or Naam Japna - To remember God by repeating His name. This is a guideline in the Rehit Mariyada of Guru Gobind Singh. This concept is permeated in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib as the way in which humans can conquer ego, greed, attachment, anger and lust....

Another Wikipedia convention is to italicize book, movie and computer/video game titles. If the first mention of the subject of an article is also a book or movie title then bold italics is used. For example, the article Wand kay Shako starts:

Wand kay Shako is one of the three main pillars of the teaching of Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of the Sikh faith. The other two pillars are Naam Japo and Kirat Karni...


Summary and Alternative Commands:

What it looks like What you type

Emphasize, strongly, very strongly.

  • As shown above, you can use apostrophes to format words:
  • These are the single apostrophes characters used several

times - not double quotes. Also do not use 'smart' quotes

''Emphasize'', '''strongly''',
'''''very strongly'''''.

You can also write italic and bold if the desired effect is a specific font style rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulas:

F = ma
  • However, the difference between these two methods is not very important for graphical browsers, and many people choose to ignore it.
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>

Headings and subheadings

Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up the article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:

  • ==Top level heading== (2 equals signs)
  • ===Subheading=== (3 equals signs)
  • ====Another level down==== (4 equals signs)

If an article has at least four headings, a table of contents will automatically be generated. Try creating a heading in this page's /sandbox/. It will be added automatically to the table of contents for the page, assuming three others already exist. When you're done, click below to continue.

Indenting

Indenting can improve the layout of a discussion considerably, making it much easier to read. A standard practice is to indent your reply one more level deep than the person you are replying to.

There are several ways of indenting in Wikipedia:

Plain indentations

The simplest way of indenting is to place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example:

This is aligned all the way to the left.
:This is indented slightly.
::This is indented more.

is shown as:

This is aligned all the way to the left.
This is indented slightly.
This is indented more.

Bullet points

You can also indent using bullets, usually used for lists. To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:

*First list item
*Second list item
**Sub-list item under second
**Second Sub-list item under second
*Isn't this fun?

Which is shown as:

  • First list item
  • Second list item
    • Sub-list item under second
    • Second Sub-list item under second
  • Isn't this fun?

Numbered items

You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign] or hash symbol (#). This is usually used for polls and voting. Again, you can affect the indent of the number by the number of #'s you use.

Example:

#First item
#Second item
##Sub-item under second item
#Third item

Shows up as:

  1. First item
  2. Second item
    1. Sub-item under second item
  3. Third item


Newline, White Space and Line Breaks

  • When you insert a Newline by pressing the Enter key, a line break in displayed while editing. However, when the page is previewed or saved to be displayed, Wiki will ignore many of these line breaks.
  • Generally speaking this is a good thing but in some cases, you may require to insert a controlled line break to help thr presentation of you text. To force a line break, use the line break character <br> whereever you require a line break to improve readability.


 
What it looks like What you type

A single newline has no effect on the layout.

But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

  • Advanced - Please ignore the rest of this paragraph during initial learing phase

(<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.

To insert a extra 'space' within your text you need to use a special code &nbsp;

The editor text H    O    W.
will display as H O W.

But if you want to insert additional spaces in the text then the text:


H &nbsp;&nbsp; O &nbsp;&nbsp; W. will display as H    O    W.

To insert a extra 'space' within your text you 
need to use a special code &nbsp;

The editor text H   O   W. 
will display as H O W.

But if you want to insert additional spaces 
in the text then the text:

H &nbsp;&nbsp; O &nbsp;&nbsp; W.
will display as H    O    W.
You can break lines
without starting a new paragraph.

  • Advanced - ignore this during initial phase
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.

Different Fonts

You can change the default font of the type by using the following commands:


What it looks like What you type
A typewriter font for technical terms which will be mono spaced.
A typewriter font for 
<tt>technical terms</tt> which will be mono spaced.
To get text to appear in in small caps.
To get text to appear in <span style="font-variant:small-caps"> 
in small caps</span>
You can insert small text in tiny spaces for captions and the like.
You can insert <small>small text in tiny spaces</small> 
for captions and the like.
Superscripts and subscripts:

x2, x2

Superscripts and subscripts:
x<sup>2</sup>, x<sub>2</sub>

Centre Text and Draw a Horizontal line

The table below shows the commands to use to carry out the function outlined above:

What it looks like What you type
This text will be Centered on the page.
<center>This text will be Centered on the page.</center>
A horizontal dividing line above

and this text below the line.

(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 this text below the line. 



More Advanced Wiki Features

Strike out, Deleted, Underline and Insert Text

  • When editing regular Wikipedia articles, just make your changes and do not mark them up in any special way by using strike out or delete function shown here. Just use the delete and Backspace keys on your keyboard.
  • When editing your own previous remarks in talk pages, it is sometimes appropriate to mark up deleted or inserted material.


What it looks like What you type

You can strike out deleted material and underline new material.

You can also mark deleted material and inserted material using logical markup rather than visual markup.

You can <s>strike out deleted material</s>
and <u>underline new material</u>.

You can also mark <del>deleted material</del> and
<ins>inserted material</ins> using logical markup
rather than visual markup.


Size of Text/Fonts

This sections show you how to increase or decrease the size of the text being displayed:

  • <div style="font-size:75%;">
  • This is text in small size - The section after the above command will display at 75% size of normal text size.
  • </div>


  • <div style="font-size:125%;">
  • This is text in big size - The section after the above command will display at 125% size of normal text size.
  • </div>


  • <div style="font-size:150%;">
  • This is text in bigger size - The section after the above command will display at 150% size of normal text size.
  • </div>


  • <div style="font-size:200%;">
  • This is text in a very big size at 200% size of normal text size. .. And so on.
  • </div>


Span properties

color

  • The term <span style="color:green;">green text</span> produces the text green text
  • The term <span style="color:green;">This is green text which covers several lines and <br>the whole of the text will have the property set in the span statement.</span>

produces the text This is green text which covers several lines and
the whole of the text will have the property set in the span statement.

font-weight normal | bold | bolder | lighter | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900 | inherit

  • The term <span style="font-weight:bold;">This is bold text which covers several lines and <br>the whole of the text will have the property set in the span statement.</span>

produces the text This is bold text which covers several lines and
the whole of the text will have the property set in the span statement.

Adding Color to Text

This section deal with the commands to add color to text. You need a command to switch on the color and a command to switch it off. The command to switch on is: </font color= ''name of color''> and the command to switch off color is simply

  • <font color=red> This will give you text in RED </font color>
  • <font color=green> This will give you text in GREEN </font color>
  • <font color=blue> This will give you text in BLUE </font color>
  • <font color=yellow> This will give you text in YELLOW </font color>
  • <font color=brown> This will give you text in BROWN </font color>
  • <font color=purple> This will give you text in PURPLE </font color>
  • <font color=orange> This will give you text in ORANGE </font color>

Combining various commands

Some of the Wiki commands can be combine to give striking results.

The example below shows enlarged text (125%) in color (Red):


  • <div style="font-size:125%;">
  • <font color=red> This will give you big text in RED. </font color>
  • </div>

The example below shows enlarged text (150%) in color (Purple) with the words in bold, italics and bold italics:


  • <div style="font-size:150%;">
  • <font color=purple> This will give you bigger text in PURPLE with bold, italics and bold italics text. </font color>
  • </div>


Help Pages from other Wiki Sites

For Beginners:


For Average User:


For the Advanced User:


Example discussion

Here is an example of a well-formatted discussion:

Hi. I have a question about this article. I'm pretty sure purple elephants only live in New York! JayRandumWikiUser 02:49, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, last time I was in New York, the elephants I saw were green. — try2BEEhelpful 17:28, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I think you should find a source for your claims. Living × Skepticism 20:53, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Okay, these elephant journals agree with me:
  • Elephants Monthly
  • Elephants World
try2BEEhelpful 19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I live in Australia, where the elephants look like kangaroos! The people below agree with my statement: -DontGdayMateMe 17:28, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  1. ElefantLuvr 01:22, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  2. AisleVoteOnAnything 05:41, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  3. alittlebehindthetimes 18:39, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Note that if you want to include a list in your comments, add colons before each item, for example:

:::Okay, these elephant journals agree with me:
:::* ''Elephants Monthly''
:::* ''Elephants World''
:::— [[Wikipedia:User page|try2BEEhelpful]] 19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Also, signing your message off is done by:

  • Writing ~~~ for the name (try2BEEhelpful), or
  • Writing ~~~~ for the name and date (try2BEEhelpful 19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)), or
  • Writing ~~~~~ for the date only (19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)).

You should usually sign with both name and date but votes are often signed with names only.

Reset screen

<br clear="all">

Experiment

Experiment! This time, instead of editing a sandbox, leave a message on the talk page by clicking "Discuss this page" or "discussion". Remember to sign your user name. You might want to try responding to someone else's post. Remember, you should use "Show preview" to see if your formatting works before you save.