Help:Editing

This page is a quick reference for Wikitext. A full help for Wiki markup can be found at Wikipedia.

This Editing Overview has a lot of wikitext examples. You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference while you edit.

Editing basics

 * Start editing
 * To start editing a MediaWiki page, click the Edit this page (or just edit) link at one of its edges. This brings 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. If you just want to experiment, please do so in the sandbox, not here.


 * Type your changes
 * You can just type your text. However, also using basic wiki markup (described in the next section) to make links and do simple formatting adds to the value of your contribution.


 * Summarize your changes
 * Write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend.


 * Preview before saving
 * When you have finished, click Show preview to see how your changes will look -- before you make them permanent. Repeat the edit/preview process until you are satisfied, then click Save page and your changes will be immediately applied to the article.


 * You can also use the links of the tools in the form of or, in the form of Icons.



Basic text formatting
For a list of HTML tags that are allowed, see HTML in wikitext. However, you should avoid HTML in favor of Wiki markup whenever possible.

Organizing your writing
{| width="100%"  border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" !What it looks like !What you type Section headings

Headings organize your writing into sections. The Wiki software can automatically generate a table of contents from them.

Subsection Using more equals signs creates a subsection.

A smaller subsection

Don't skip levels, like from two to four equals signs.

Start with 2 equals signs not 1 because 1 creates H1 tags which should be reserved for page title.

Subsection
Using more equals signs creates a subsection.

Templates and transcluding pages
Templates are segments of wiki markup that are meant to be copied automatically ("transcluded") into a page. You add them by putting the template's name in. By default, pages are transcluded from the default Template namespace. The namespace is the portion of a page name before the colon; for instance, in Help:Editing, Help is the namespace in which the page Editing lives.

It is also possible to transclude other pages from the default namespace (the null one) by using.

There are three pairs of transclusion markup tags that can be used in wikitext to control how transclusion affects parts of a template or article. They determine whether or not wikitext renders, either in its own article, which we will call "here", or in another article where it is transcluded, which we will call "there". There can be several such section. Also, they can be nested.
 *  :  the content will not be rendered there. These tags have no effect here.
 *  :  the content will render only there, and  will not render here (like invisible ink made visible by means of transclusion).
 *  :  the content will render here and will render there, but it will only render there what is between these tags.

Remark: if a page is transcluded without any transclusion markup, it may cause an unintentional categorization. Any page transcluding it will contain the same category as the original page. Wrap the category markup with   tags to prevent incorrect categorization.

Special Pages
Special pages are pages that cannot be edited, but are generated by the wiki engine. They provide very useful functions, and live in the Special namespace. A summary of all special pages is available from Special:SpecialPages.

Direct link to frequently used Special pages are:


 * Special:WhatLinksHere that allows to find all the wiki pages linking to the given page name. For example, find all the pages linking to this page
 * Special:PrefixIndex that allows to find all pages starting with the given prefix. For example, find all the pages in the Template namespace

Minor edits
A logged-in user can mark an edit as "minor". Minor edits are generally spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. Users may choose to hide minor edits when viewing Recent Changes.

Marking a significant change as a minor edit is considered bad Wikiquette. If you have accidentally marked an edit as minor, make a dummy edit, verify that the " [ ] This is a minor edit " check-box is unchecked, and explain in the edit summary that the previous edit was not minor.