Advanced Editing

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For the basics see Help:Editing.

Wikitext markup &mdash; making your page look the way you want

 * If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the    :Sandbox.
 * More information on HTML tags in wikitext

Organizing your writing &mdash; sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" !What it looks like !What you type Start sections with header lines
 * Sections and subsections
 * Sections and subsections
 * Sections and subsections

Note: Single equal signs give the highest level heading, like the page title; usually projects have the convention not to use them.

 New section 

 Subsection 

 Sub-subsection 


 * Start with a second-level heading ( == ); don't use first-level headings (=).
 * Don't skip levels (for example, second-level followed by fourth-level).
 * A table of contents will automatically be added to an article that has four or more sections.
 * If appropriate, place subsections in order. If listing countries, for example, place them in alphabetical order rather than, say, relative to population of OECD countries, or some random order.
 * If you want to keep headings out of the TOC you have to use HTML heading tags and close them without using a slash e.g. heading too low level to be in the toc of large page.

Sub-subsection

 * Newline:
 * Newline:
 * Newline:

A single newline has no effect on the layout.

But an empty line starts a new paragraph, or ends a list or indented part. (  disables this paragraphing until   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 semicolon at the start of a line is not rendered, but has the effect of rendering the newline. A colon in such a line is not rendered, but has the effect of starting a new, indented line, see definition list.

You can make the wikitext more readable by putting in newlines. You might find this causes future problems &mdash; see w:Wikipedia:Don't use line breaks for details.


 * When used in a list, a newline does affect the layout (See Help:List).

A single newline has no effect on the layout.

But an empty line starts a new paragraph. without starting a new paragraph. (The HTML tag  is sufficient.  The system produces the XHTML code .)
 * You can break lines
 * You can break lines

without starting a new paragraph. marks the end of the list.
 * Please use this sparingly.
 * Close markup between lines; do not start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next.
 * You can break lines
 * Unordered Lists are easy to do:
 * start every line with a star
 * more stars means deeper levels
 * A newline
 * in a list
 * A newline
 * in a list
 * Of course
 * you can
 * start again.

marks the end of the list.
 * * Unordered Lists are easy to do:
 * start every line with a star
 * more stars means deeper levels
 * A newline
 * in a list
 * Of course
 * you can
 * start again.

marks the end of the list.
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) A newline
 * 5) in a list
 * 1) A newline
 * 2) in a list
 * 1) New numbering starts
 * 2) with 1.

marks the end of the list.
 * # Numbered lists are also good
 * 1) very organized
 * 2) easy to follow
 * 3) A newline
 * 4) in a list
 * 1) New numbering starts
 * 2) with 1.
 * You can even do mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * or break lines in lists
 * * You can even do mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * or break lines in lists
 * Definition list
 * word : definition of the word
 * longer phrase
 * phrase defined
 * word : definition of the word
 * longer phrase
 * phrase defined


 * ; word : definition of the word
 * longer phrase
 * phrase defined


 * One item per line; a newline can appear before the colon, but using a space before the colon improves parsing.
 * indenting
 * A colon at the start of a line indents a paragraph.
 * indenting
 * A colon at the start of a line indents a paragraph.

A manual newline starts a new paragraph. In the case of a semicolon and some text in front of the colon, the first colon starts a new line (indented as before) even though it is in the wikitext not at the start of the line, see definition list. A manual newline starts a new paragraph. When there is a need for separating a block of text the blockquote command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. This is useful for (as the name says) inserting blocks of quoted (and cited) text. The blockquote command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. this is above it...
 * This is often used for discussion on Talk pages.
 * : A colon indents a line or paragraph.
 * Centered text.
 * Please note the US-English spelling of "center".
 * Centered text.
 * A horizontal dividing line:
 * A horizontal dividing line:
 * A horizontal dividing line:

...and this is below it.

If you don't use a section header, you don't get a TOC entry. this is above it...
 * A horizontal dividing line:

...and this is below it.
 * }

Links, URLs
More information at Help:Link

Internal links
General notes:
 * Enclose the target name in double square brackets &mdash; "" and ""
 * First letter of target name is automatically capitalized
 * Spaces are represented as underscores (but don't do underscores yourself)
 * Links to nonexistent pages are shown in red &mdash; Help:Starting a new page tells about creating the page.
 * When the mouse cursor "hovers" over the link, you see a "hover box" containing... hover over links below to see.

Text formatting &mdash; controlling how it looks
.  A typewriter font, sometimes used for technical terms and. You can use small text for captions. You can use small text for captions. You can strike out deleted material and underline new material.
 * For semantic reasons, using  where applicable is preferable to using.

You can also mark deleted material and inserted material using logical markup rather than visual markup. You can strike out deleted material and underline new material.
 * When editing regular articles, just make your changes and do not mark them up in any special way.
 * When editing your own previous remarks in talk pages, it is sometimes appropriate to mark up deleted or inserted material.

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

 Subscript: x2 Superscript: x2 or x&sup2;

Most browsers have an easier time formatting lines with &amp;sup2; than with &lt;sup>2&lt;/sup>

&epsilon;0 = 8.85 &times; 10&minus;12 C&sup2; / J m. 1 hectare = 1 E4 m²

Subscript: x2 Superscript: x2 or x&amp;sup2; &amp;epsilon;0 = 8.85 &amp;times; 10&amp;minus;12 C&amp;sup2; / J m.

1 hectare = 1 E4 m&amp;sup2

Disabling wikitext interpretation and/or reformatting
&lt;nowiki&gt; and &lt;pre&gt; tags can tell the server and the browser to display things as you typed them.

Special characters
Writing a symbol over another one:

o x gives o x.

Including another page &mdash; transclusion and templates
Changing a transcluded file will change every file that transcludes it.

Records of edits in the database
Edits are recorded both in the revision table and in the recentchanges table of the database.

The revision table is used for page histories and user contribution lists. The recentchanges table is used for recent and related changes, watchlists, and (in the case of page creation) for the list of new pages.

This distinction is relevant in the case that old edits are removed from one of the two tables. For example, if three months of recent changes are kept in the recentchanges table, while nothing is deleted from the revision table, then older edits can be seen in page histories and user contribution lists, but not in recent and related changes, watchlists, and (in the case of page creation) in the list of new pages.

Import of page revisions adds to the revision table but not to the recentchanges table, so they add to page histories and user contribution lists, but not to recent and related changes, watchlists, and (in the case of page creation) the list of new pages.