Help:Contents

1 Text formatting markup

Description	You type	You get
character (inline) formatting – applies anywhere
Italic text	''italic''	italic
Bold text	'''bold'''	bold
Bold and italic	'''''bold & italic'''''	bold & italic
section formatting – only at the beginning of the line
Headings of different levels	== Level 2 == === Level 3 === ==== Level 4 ==== ===== Level 5 ===== ====== Level 6 ====== Skip Level 1 it is page name level. An article with 4 or more headings automatically creates a table of contents.	2 Level 2 2.1 Level 3 2.1.1 Level 4 2.1.1.1 Level 5 2.1.1.1.1 Level 6
Horizontal rule	Text above ---- Text below	Text above Text below
Bullet list	* Start each line * with an [[Wikipedia:asterisk|asterisk]] (*). ** More asterisks gives deeper *** and deeper levels. * Line breaks<br/>don't break levels. *** But jumping levels creates empty space. Any other start ends the list.	Start each line with an asterisk (*). More asterisks gives deeper and deeper levels. Line breaks don't break levels. But jumping levels creates empty space. Any other start ends the list.
Numbered list	# Start each line # with a [[Wikipedia:Number_sign|number sign]] (#). ## More number signs gives deeper ### and deeper ### levels. # Line breaks<br/>don't break levels. ### But jumping levels creates empty space. # Blank lines # end the list and start another. Any other start also ends the list.	Start each line with a number sign (#). More number signs gives deeper and deeper levels. Line breaks don't break levels. But jumping levels creates empty space. Blank lines end the list and start another. Any other start also ends the list.
Definition list	;item 1 : definition 1 ;item 2 : definition 2-1 : definition 2-2	item 1 definition 1 item 2 definition 2-1 definition 2-2
Indent text	: Single indent :: Double indent ::::: Multiple indent	Single indent Double indent Multiple indent
Mixture of different types of list	# one # two #* two point one #* two point two # three #; three item one #: three def one # four #: four def one #: this looks like a continuation #: and is often used #: instead<br/>of <nowiki><br/></nowiki> # five ## five sub 1 ### five sub 1 sub 1 ## five sub 2	one two two point one two point two three three item one three def one four four def one this looks like a continuation and is often used instead of <br/> five five sub 1 five sub 1 sub 1 five sub 2

3 Paragraphs

MediaWiki ignores single line breaks. To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line. You can force a line break within a paragraph with the HTML tag <br/>.

4 HTML tags

Some HTML tags are allowed in MediaWiki, for example <code>, <div>, <span> and <font>. These apply anywhere you insert them.

Description	You type	You get
Deleted (Displays as strikethrough in most browsers.)	<del>Deleted</del> or <span style="text-decoration:line-through;">Deleted</span>	Deleted or Deleted
Comment	<!-- This is a comment --> Comments are only visible in the edit window.	Comments are only visible in the edit window.

5 Internal links

To add an internal link, enclose the name of the page you want to link to in double square brackets. When you save the page, you'll see the new link pointing to your page. If the page exists already it is displayed in blue, if it does not, in red. Selflinks to the current page are not transformed in URLs but displayed in bold. (If you really want to link to the current page, use an anchor (see below), or [[#top|current page]] which always links to the top.)

The first letter of the target page is automatically capitalized, unless otherwise set by the admins, and spaces are represented as underscores (typing an underscore in the link will have a similar effect as typing a space, but is not recommended, since the underscore will also be shown in the text).

Description	You type	You get
Internal link	[[Main Page]]	Main Page
Piped link	[[Main Page|different text]]	different text
Hide namespace shortcut	[[Help:Contents|]] Short for [[Help:Contents|Contents]]	Contents
Word-ending links	[[Help]]s [[Help]]ing [[Help]]ers [[Help]]anylettersyoulikehere	Helps Helping Helpers Helpanylettersyoulikehere
Redirect	#REDIRECT [[Main Page]]	→ Main Page
Internal link to an anchor	[[#See also]] Section headings and the top of the page are automatically anchored.	#See also
Internal link to an anchor from different text	[[#See also|different text]]	different text
Setting an internal link anchor	<div id="NameOfAnchorHere">optional text</div> Omit the "optional text" for invisible anchor.	optional text
Internal link to an anchor at another page	[[Help:Images#See also]]	Help:Images#See also
Internal link to a category page	[[:Section:Help]]	Section:Help
Internal link to an image or a file of other types	[[media:example.jpg]] [[media:example.pdf]] See also Help:Images	media:example.jpg

6 External links

To add an external link, enclose the name of the page you want to link to in single square brackets. When you save the page, you'll see the new link pointing to your page, with an arrow icon after it to show that it was coded with single bracket external link syntax, and thus may lead to another site.

Description	You type	You get
External link	http://mediawiki.org	http://mediawiki.org
External link with different label	[http://mediawiki.org MediaWiki]	MediaWiki
Numbered external link	[http://mediawiki.org]	[1]
External links with file icons	[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.avi video] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ogg sound] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.pdf document] See external link icons for currently supported icons and extensions.	video sound document
External link to the same host	http://{{SERVERNAME}}/pagename	http://rpm.rcabc.org/pagename
External link to other host passing the pagename	http://google.com/search?q={{PAGENAMEE}}	http://google.com/search?q=Contents
Mailto link	[mailto:info@example.org email me]	email me
Mailto named with subject line and body	[mailto:info@example.org?Subject=URL%20Encoded%20Subject&body=Body%20Text info]	info

6.1 How to avoid auto-links

When you put a URL on a wiki page it will be automatically converted into an external link, like this:

http://mediawiki.org

To avoid that effect, put the URL between <nowiki> tags, like this:

<nowiki>http://mediawiki.org</nowiki>

To get this:

http://mediawiki.org

7 Images

Images that are stored on a MediaWiki server are usually rendered by using the File: namespace prefix (but the legacy Image: namespace prefix is still supported as a synonym) as the target of a MediaWiki link. The alternate Media: namespace prefix is also usable to reference the original media file content (for rendering or downloading it separately, out of any MediaWiki page).

8 Supported media types for images

The following file formats are supported by default:

• .jpg or .jpeg : bitmap image compressed in the standard JPEG format (this lossy format is most suitable for photographs).
• .png : bitmap image in the Portable Network Graphics format (specified by the W3 Consortium).
• .gif : bitmap image in the legacy Graphics Interchange Format.

Other formats used on Wikimedia, and commonly enabled elsewhere (these may require extra set-up beyond what is enabled by default):

• .svg : scalable image in the Scalable Vector Graphics format (specified by the W3 Consortium).
• .tiff : Tagged image format. Often used for high-resolution archival photographs. <-- Often used with Template:Mediawiki. -->
• .ogg, .oga, .ogv : Ogg multimedia (audio or video) Not an image format, but treated similarly. <-- Often used with Template:Mediawiki -->
• .pdf : multipaged documents in the Portable Document Format (initially specified by Adobe). <-- Often used in conjunction with Template:Mediawiki -->
• .djvu : multipaged bitmap documents in the DejaVu format (most often, scans of books). <-- See Template:Mediawiki -->

  Only a single page of a .pdf or .djvu file is shown at one time.

Other media types may be supported, but it may not be possible to display them inline.

9 Rendering a single image

9.1 Syntax

The full syntax for displaying an image is:

[[File:filename.extension|options|caption]]

where options can be zero or more of the following, separated by pipes (|):

• Format option: one of border and/or frameless, frame, thumb (or thumbnail);

  Controls how the rendered image is formatted and embedded in the rest of the page.

• Resizing option: one of
  • {width}px — Resizes the image to fit within the given maximum width in pixels, without restricting its height;
  • x{height}px — Resizes the image to fit within the given maximum height in pixels, without restricting its width;
  • {width}x{height}px — Resizes the image to fit within the given width and height in pixels;
  • upright — Resizes an image to fit within reasonable dimensions, according to user preferences (suitable for images whose height is larger than width).

  Note that the image will always retain its aspect ratio, and can only be reduced (not increased) in size unless it's in a scalable media type (bitmap images cannot be scaled up).

  The default maximum size depends on the format and the internal image dimensions (according to its media type).

• Horizontal alignment option: one of left, right, center, none;

  Controls the horizontal alignment (and inline/block or floating styles) of the image within a text (no default value).

• Vertical alignment option: one of baseline, sub, super, top, text-top, middle, bottom, text-bottom;

  Controls the vertical alignment of a non-floating inline image with the text before or after the image, and in the same block (the default vertical alignment is middle).

• Link option: one of
  • link={target} — Allows to change the target (to an arbitrary page title, or URL) of the generated link, activable on the rendered image surface; e.g. [[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=http://www.wikipedia.org]] renders as (external link), or [[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=MediaWiki]] renders as (internal link).
  • link= (with an empty value) — Displays an image without any activable link; e.g. [[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=]] renders as .

! Link does not work with thumb, thumbnail or frame.

• Other specific options:
  • alt={alternative text} — Defines the alternative text (maps to the HTML attribute alt="..." of the generated <image /> element) of an image that will be rendered if either the referenced image cannot be downloaded and embedded, or if the support media must use the alternative description text (e.g. when using a Braille reader or with accessibility options set by the user in its browser).
  • page={number} — Renders the specified page number (currently only applicable when showing a .djvu or .pdf file).

The options can be given in any order. If the given options conflict each other, the latter is applied, except for the format options, where the options take the priority in the order of: frame; thumb (or thumbnail); frameless and/or border.

If a parameter does not match any of the other possibilities, it is assumed to be the caption text. Caption text shows below the image in thumb and frame formats, or as mouseover text in border, frameless formats or when the format is omitted. Caption text displayed in the thumb and frame formats may contain wiki links and other formatting. In the other options, wiki-formatting will not work though transclusion will.

If no caption text is supplied, a caption is automatically created showing the file name. To completely remove the caption, set it to <span title=""></span>. For example, [[File:Example.jpg|20px|<span title=""></span>]] renders as .

For more help on images see [here].

10 SECTIONS

(May be referred to as Categories in this section)

Categories, a software feature of MediaWiki, provide automatic indexes that are useful as tables of contents.

You can categorize pages and files by adding one or more Category tags to the content text. These tags create links at the bottom of the page that take you to the list of all pages in that category, which makes it easy to browse related articles.

11 Summary

Each of the pages in the Category namespace represents a so-called category, a grouping of related pages, and contains an index for the pages of its category. For example, this page belongs to "Category:Help". If you open the "Category:Help" page, you will see a link to this page there.

When a page belongs to one or more categories, these categories appear at the bottom of the page (or in the upper-right corner, depending on the skin being used).

The category pages themselves contain 2 parts :

• at their beginning, an optional part may contain text that can be edited, like any other page,
• at their end, an ever present, automatically generated, alphabetical list of all pages in that category, in the form of links. (In fact, in ASCII order. See Help:Special page).

To assign a category to a page, simply add the link "[[Category:Category name]]" to the page's wikitext. The usual place to add it is at the bottom of the page.

To link a category page within a page as a normal wiki link (without adding the page to the category), prefix the link name with a colon. For example: [[:Category:Not in this category]]

New categories can be created before assigning any page to it, in the same way as any other regular page.

Individual wikis may have their own top-level categories, such as Category:Contents in Wikipedia.

For a complete list of all categories which have at least one page, see Special:Categories.

For a complete list of all created/edited categories, including the ones that don't have any page, see Special:Allpages/Category: (note the colon at the end).

12 Adding a page to a category

To add a page or uploaded file to a category, simply edit the page and add the following text (where Name is the name of the category you want to add it to).

[[Category:Name]]

Any number of Category tags may be added to the page and the page will be listed in all of them. Category tags, along with interwiki language links placed in the sidebar, are usually added at the very bottom of the page for the convenience of other editors.

On a categorised page, categories are displayed in the Categories: box strictly in the order they appear in the wikitext.

12.1 Sort key

By default, a page is sorted within a category under the first letter of its full name including the namespace. Also, MediaWiki groups accented characters separately from their unaccented version, so pages starting by À, Á, Ä, will be listed under separate headings, instead of under heading A.

A sort key specifies under which letter heading, and where in the category list, the page will appear. You can add a sort key by placing it inside the tag after a pipe character. For example, the tag below will add the page under heading "S".

[[Category:Name|Sort]]

Sort keys are case-sensitive, and spaces and other characters are also valid. The order of the sections within a category follows the Unicode sort order. The sort key does not change the page title displayed in the category.

13 Creating a category page

Categories exist even if their page has not been created, but these categories are isolated from others and serve little purpose for organization or navigation.

A category is created by creating a page in the Category: namespace. A category page can be created the same way as other wiki pages (see Help:Starting a new page); just add "Category:" before the page title.

To avoid extra work, try searching within your wiki before creating a new category. The list of all categories can be found in "Special pages" in the "tools" box of the sidebar.

Unlike other wiki pages, it is not possible to rename (move) a category. It is necessary to create a new category and change the Category tag on every page. The new category will not have the older category's page history, which is undesirable if there are many revisions.

14 Managing the category hierarchy

Categories may belong to other categories in a hierarchy. Since category pages are much like any other page, a Category tag may be added to the bottom of a category page.

It is a good idea to organize all categories into a hierarchy with a single top level category. The category structure can take the form of a tree with separate branches, but more often will have a graph structure. Generally, there should be a contiguous chain of parent-child links between each category and the top level category.

15 Linking to a category

To create a link to a category, use a leading colon before the category name (without this colon, the current page would be added to the category):

[[:Category:Help]] → Category:Help

To change the link text, write the text inside the link tag after a pipe:

[[:Category:Help|Help category]] → Help category

Redirect pages that redirect to categories must also use the colon, otherwise they will be added to the category instead of redirecting.