Help:Formatting

You can format your text by using wiki markup. This consists of normal characters like asterisks, apostrophes or equal signs 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 pairs of apostrophes like.

Text formatting markup
{| class="wikitable" ! Description ! width=40% | You type ! width=40% | You get ! colspan="3" style="background: #ABE" | Character (inline) formatting – applies anywhere  italic   italic   bold   bold   bold & italic   bold & italic  no wiki markup ! colspan="3" style="background: #ABE" | Section formatting – only at the beginning of the line
 * Italic text
 * Italic text
 * Bold text
 * Bold text
 * Bold and italic
 * Bold and italic
 * - style="visibility: collapse;"
 * colspan="3" |
 * Escape wiki markup
 * Escape wiki markup
 * Section Headings of different levels
 * Section Headings of different levels

Level 6


Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Level 6 Text before
 * Horizontal rule
 * Horizontal rule

Text after Text before

Text after
 * Bullet list
 * Bullet list

don't break levels. Any other start ends the list.
 * Start each line
 * with an asterisk (*).
 * More asterisks give deeper
 * and deeper levels.
 * Line breaks
 * But jumping levels creates empty space.


 * combine bullet list
 * with definition
 * - definition


 * creates empty space


 * combine bullet list
 * with definition
 * - definition
 * without empty spaces


 * bullet list
 * - definition
 * sublist that doesn't create empty
 * spaces after definition



don't break levels. Any other start ends the list.
 * Start each line
 * with an asterisk (*).
 * More asterisks give deeper
 * and deeper levels.
 * Line breaks
 * But jumping levels creates empty space.


 * combine bullet list
 * with definition
 * - definition


 * creates empty space


 * combine bullet list
 * with definition
 * - definition
 * without empty spaces


 * bullet list
 * - definition
 * sublist that doesn't create empty
 * spaces after definition


 * Numbered list
 * Numbered list

don't break levels.
 * 1) Start each line
 * 2) with a number sign (#).
 * 3) More number signs give deeper
 * 4) and deeper
 * 5) levels.
 * 6) Line breaks
 * 1) But jumping levels creates empty space.
 * 2) Blank lines

Any other start also ends the list.
 * 1) end the list and start another.

&lt;nowiki&gt;#&lt;/nowiki&gt; use "nowiki" tags to display a literal (#) at the beginning of a line without interpreting it as a numbered list.

don't break levels.
 * 1) Start each line
 * 2) with a number sign (#).
 * 3) More number signs give deeper
 * 4) and deeper
 * 5) levels.
 * 6) Line breaks
 * 1) But jumping levels creates empty space.
 * 2) Blank lines

Any other start also ends the list.
 * 1) end the list and start another.


 * 1) use "nowiki" tags to display a literal (#) at the beginning of a line without interpreting it as a numbered list.
 * Definition 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
 * Indent text


 * Single indent
 * Double indent
 * Multiple indent




 * Single indent
 * Double indent
 * Multiple indent


 * Mixture of different types of list
 * Mixture of different types of list



of Start each line with a space. Text is preformatted and markups can be done.
 * 1) one
 * 2) two
 * 3) * two point one
 * 4) * two point two
 * 5) three
 * 6) ; three item one
 * three def one
 * 1) four
 * four def one
 * this looks like a continuation
 * and is often used
 * instead
 * 1) five
 * 2) five sub 1
 * 3) five sub 1 sub 1
 * 4) five sub 2
 * Preformatted text
 * Preformatted text

Start each line with a space. Text is preformatted and markups can be done. Start with a space in the first column, (before the &lt;nowiki&gt; ).
 * Preformatted text blocks
 * &lt;nowiki&gt;
 * &lt;nowiki&gt;

Then your block format will be   maintained.

This is good for copying in code blocks:

def function: """ documentation string """

if True: print True else: print False&lt;/nowiki&gt;
 * }

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.

HTML tags
Some HTML tags are allowed in MediaWiki, for example,  , and. These apply anywhere you insert them.

continued:

Inserting symbols
Symbols and other special characters not available on your keyboard can be inserted in a multitude of ways. Many Operating Systems and browsers allow you to insert special characters through a menu option or Operating System panel. Additionally, you can use the WikiEditor or VisualEditor to insert them into the edit screen.

As a last resort, you can use a special sequence of characters. Those sequences are called HTML entities. For example, the following sequence (entity) &amp;rarr; when inserted will be shown as right arrow HTML symbol &rarr; and &amp;mdash; when inserted will be shown as an em dash HTML symbol &mdash;.

See the list of all HTML entities on the Wikipedia article List of HTML entities. Additionally, MediaWiki supports two non-standard entity reference sequences:  and   which are both considered equivalent to   which is a right-to-left mark. (Used when combining right to left languages with left to right languages in the same page.)

HTML tags and symbol entities displayed themselves (with and without interpreting them)

 * &rarr; &amp;euro;


 * &rarr;  Typo to be corrected 


 * &rarr; &lt;span style="color: red; text-decoration: line-through;"> Typo to be corrected &lt;/span>

Nowiki for HTML
can prohibit (HTML) tags: But not &amp; symbol escapes:
 * < pre> &rarr;
 * &< nowiki />amp; &rarr; & amp;

To print &amp; symbol escapes as text, use " " to replace the "&" character (eg. type "  ", which results in "  ").

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




 * LanguageConverter markup – see Writing systems/Syntax


 * References – see Extension:Cite/Cite.php
 * Tables

You can find more references at Help:Contents.