Help:Formatting

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You can format your text using wiki markup. This consists of normal characters like asterisks, single quotes or equation marks which sometimes have a special function in the wiki, dependent 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''
only at the beginning of the line
Headings of different levels	==level 1== ===level 2=== ====level 3==== =====level 4=====	Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
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

Notes:

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/>.

Table of contents (TOC)

Auto TOC

For each page with more than three headings, a table of contents (TOC) is automatically generated from the section headings, unless:

• (for a user) preferences are set to turn it off
• (for an article) the magic word __NOTOC__ (with two underscores on either side of the word) is added in the edit box

Manual TOC

When either __FORCETOC__ or __TOC__ (with two underscores on either side of the word) is placed in the wikitext, a TOC is added even if the page has fewer than four headings.

With __FORCETOC__, the TOC is placed before the first section heading. With __TOC__, it is placed at the same position where this code is placed. This allows any positioning, e.g. on the right or in a table cell.

There may be some introductory text before the TOC, known as the "lead". Although a heading after the TOC is usually preferable, __TOC__ can be used to avoid being forced to insert a meaningless heading just to position the TOC correctly, i.e., not too low.

Floating TOC

The Table of contents can be placed in a floating table on the right hand of the screen with this code:

  {| align="right"
  | __TOC__
  |}

Compact TOC

A wide range of compact TOCs is available as listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Compact_tables_of_contents. If you would like to use one of these, please leave a message at Wikimapia:To_do_list and the necessary code will be copied over.

Limiting the TOC

When an article or project page has a very large number of subsections, it may be appropriate to hide lower-level subsections from the TOC. You can specify a limit for the lowest-level section that should be displayed using {{TOClimit|limit=''n''}}, where n is the number of = signs that are used on each side of the lowest-level section header that should be displayed (e.g. 3 to show ===sections=== but hide ====sections====).

References and footnotes

Single citation of a reference or footnote

At the point of citation in the main text, enter the reference or footnote like this:

<ref>Excel For Dummies, First Edition, Hungry Minds, Inc., 1980.</ref>

You can include formatting and links in the footnote or reference text in the usual way.

Multiple citations of the same reference or footnote

To cite the same reference or footnote several times, identify it using the name parameter of the <ref> tag.

At one of the citation points (it makes sense to choose the first), enter the reference like this:

<ref name="Perry">Perry's Handbook, Sixth Edition, McGraw-Hill Co., 1984.</ref>

Then, at all the other citation points just enter:

<ref name="Perry"/>

Producing the reference or footnote list

At the point where you want the text of the footnotes or references to appear (usually at the end of the article in a "Notes" or "References" section), insert the tag:

<references/>

What it looks like

The <ref> tags in the main text are converted to auto-numbered superscripts, like this:

The only reference to Excel For Dummies.

The first reference to Perry's Handbook.

The second reference to Perry's Handbook.   

The third reference to Perry's Handbook and to another, related book.

The only reference to Linux in a Nutshell.

Clicking on a numbered superscript takes you straight to the text of the corresponding footnote or reference.

The <references/> tag is expanded to show the text of the footnotes or references against their corresponding numbers, like this:

For single citations, clicking on the up arrow takes you to the point of citation in the main text.

For multiple citations, the links back to the main text are distinguished by letter superscripts (a, b, c etc.). Clicking on a letter superscript takes you to the corresponding citation in the main text.

HTML

General

Any HTML element can be used when enclosed within <html></html> wrappers.

In addition, the following HTML elements can be used without wrappers:

<b> <big> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <cite> <code> <dd> <div> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1>

<h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr> <i> <li> <ol> <p> <pre> <rb> <rp> <rt> <ruby>

<s> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul> <var> <!-- ... -->

&nbsp;

The html none breaking space symbol (&nbsp;) can be used to prevent compound words from breaking across lines.

Other formatting

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

• Links
• Images
• Tables
• More Formatting from Wikipedia