Wikipedia:How to edit a page (concise)
This page is intended to provide a concise and printable guide for users hoping to use English-only Wikipedia in a controlled manner. As such, it focuses only on the common editing functions used in Wikipedia and cuts many of the more arcane details such as math functions, foreign language characters, etc. For a more detailed guide, see Wikipedia:How to edit a page. Basically anyone can edit Wikipedia. It's a simple and easy way to share your knowledge!
General
To edit a MediaWiki page, click on the "Edit this page" (or just "edit") link at one of its edges. This will bring you to the edit page: a page with a text box containing the wikitext: the editable source code from which the server produces the webpage. Depending on the preferences that have been set, a version of the edit page called preview page appears: in this case the rendered page is also shown; if not you get it by pressing "Show preview", see below.
The edit link of a page showing an old version leads to an edit page with the old wikitext. This allows restoring the old version. However, the edit link of a diff page gives the current wikitext, even if the diff page shows an old version below the table of differences.
After adding to or changing the wikitext it is useful to press "Show preview", which produces the corresponding webpage in your browser but does not make it publicly available yet (not until you press "Publish changes"). Errors in formatting, links, tables, etc., are often much easier to discover from the rendered page than from the raw wikitext.
If you are not satisfied you can make more changes and preview the page as many times as necessary. Then write a short edit summary in the small text field below the edit-box and when finished press "Publish changes". Depending on your system, pressing the "Enter" key while the edit box is not active (i.e., there is no typing cursor in it) may have the same effect as pressing "Publish changes".
You may find it more convenient to copy and paste the text first into your favorite text editor, edit and spell check it there, and then paste it back into your web browser to preview. This way, you can also keep a local backup copy of the pages you have edited. It also allows you to make changes offline, but before you submit your changes, please make sure nobody else has edited the page since you saved your local copy (by checking the page history), otherwise you may accidentally revert someone else's edits. If someone has edited it since you copied the page, you'll have to merge their edits into your new version (you can find their specific edits by using the "diff" feature of the page history). These issues are handled automatically by the MediaWiki software if you edit the page in your web browser.
Minor edits
When editing a page, a logged-in user has the option of flagging the edit as a "minor edit". This feature is important, because users can choose to hide minor edits in their view of the recent changes page, to keep the volume of edits down to a manageable level.
The wiki markup
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.
Sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Start your sections with header lines: Note: Single equal signs work for formatting headings, however as a convention for this wiki, do not use them.
New section Subsection Sub-subsection |
== New section == === Subsection === ==== Sub-subsection ==== |
|
A line break (i.e. pushing the enter key) needs to be done twice to create a new paragraph. A single newline has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph.
|
A single newline has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. |
marks the end of the list.
|
* 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.
|
# 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. |
|
* You can even do mixed lists *# and nest them *#* like this<br />or have newlines<br />inside lists |
|
* You can also **break lines<br />inside lists<br />like this |
|
; Definition list : list of definitions ; item : the item's definition |
A manual newline starts a new paragraph.
|
: 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. (see also below)
|
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; |
Centered text.
|
{{center|Centered text.}}
|
| 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. |
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 [[meta: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 |
|
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:
or five for just the 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: : ~~~~ or five for date/time: : ~~~~~ |
A red link (like red link example) points to a page that doesn't exist yet.
|
The weather [[in and for a few miles around]] London is a page that doesn't exist yet. |
|
Redirect one article title to another by putting text like this in its first line. |
#REDIRECT [[United States]] |
| "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. |
|
To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, use a "media" link.
|
[[media:Classical guitar scale.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: 
|
A picture: [[File:Wiki.png]] or, with alternative text (strongly encouraged) [[File: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. |
|
Clicking on an uploaded image (file) displays a description page, which you can also link directly to: File:Wiki.png |
[[:File:Wiki.png]] |
|
To include links to images shown as links instead of drawn on the page, use a "media" link.
|
[[media:Tornado aircraft.jpg|Image of a Tornado]] |
Character formatting
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Emphasize, strongly, very strongly.
|
''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:
|
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> |
| You can use small text for captions. | You can use <small>small text</small> for captions. |
| You can and underline new (inserted) material. |
You can <del>strike out deleted material</del> and <ins>underline new (inserted) material</ins>. |
|
Commenting page source:
|
<!-- comment here --> |
Templates
Some part of a page may correspond in the edit box to just a reference to another page, in the form {{name}}, referring to the page "Template:name" (or if the name starts with a namespace prefix, it refers to the page with that name; if it starts with a colon it refers to the page in the main namespace with that name without the colon). This is called a template. For changing that part of the page, edit that other page. Sometimes a separate edit link is provided for this purpose. A convenient way to put such a link in a template is with a template like m:Template:ed. Note that the change also affects other pages which use the same template.
Separating edits
When moving or copying a piece of text within a page or from another page, and also making other edits, it is useful to separate these edits. This way the diff function can be usefully applied for checking these other edits.