Help:Formatting

This page is a modified copy of MediaWiki.org's Public Domain Help Pages, which can be freely copied into fresh wiki installations and/or distributed with MediaWiki software. See Help:Contents for an overview of all pages.

You can format your text using wiki markup. This consists of normal characters like asterisks, single quotes or equation marks which have a special function in the wiki, sometimes depending on their position. For example, to format a word in italic, you include it in two single quotes like ''this''

Text formatting markup

Description	You type	You get
applies anywhere
Italic text	''italic''	italic
Bold text	'''bold'''	bold
Bold and italic	'''''bold & italic'''''	bold & italic
Escape wiki markup	<nowiki>no "markup"</nowiki>	no ''markup''
Fixed width text	<tt>Fixed width text</tt>	Fixed width text
only at the beginning of the line
Indent text	:Single indent ::Double indent :::::Multiple indent	Single indent Double indent Multiple indent
Headings of different levels <ref>An article with four or more headings will automatically create a table of contents.</ref>	=level 1=<ref>Use of a level 1 heading is highly discouraged as it appears with the same formatting and size as the page title, which can be confusing.</ref> ==level 2== ===level 3=== ====level 4==== =====level 5===== ======level 6======	Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6
Horizontal rule	----
Bullet list	* one * two * three ** three and one-third ** three and two-thirds	one two three three and one-third three and two-thirds
Numbered list	# one # two<br>spanning several lines<br>without breaking the numbering # three ## three point one ## three point two	one two spanning several lines without breaking the numbering three three point one three point two
Mixture of bulleted and numbered lists	# one # two #* two point one #* two point two	one two two point one two point two
Definition list	;Definition :item 1 :item 2	Definition item 1 item 2
Preformatted text	preformatted text is done with   a space at the   beginning of the line	preformatted text is done with a space at the beginning of the line
Preformatted text with no indentation	<pre> some preformatted text with no indentation </pre>	some preformatted text with no indentation
Blockquotes	Body text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text <blockquote> quote quote quote quote quote quote </blockquote> text text text text text text text text text text text text	Body text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text quote quote quote quote quote quote text text text text text text text text text text text text
Comment	<!--This is comment-->

Notes: <references/>

Paragraphs

MediaWiki ignores normal line breaks. To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line. You can also start a new line with the HTML tags <br> or <br/>.

HTML

Some HTML tags are allowed in MediaWiki, for example <code>, <div>, <span> and <font>.

Tip for wiki admins: If you trust your users you can allow full HTML by setting $wgRawHtml = true; in LocalSettings.php.

Other formatting

Beyond the text formatting markup shown above, here are some other formatting references:

• Links
• Images
• Tables
• More Formatting from Wikipedia