Help:Formatting

See the original page at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting

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 pairs of single quotes 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 &lt;nowiki>no markup</nowiki&gt; no markup ! colspan="3" style="background:#ABE" | section formatting – only at the beginning of the line = Level 1 =
 * Italic text
 * Italic text
 * Bold text
 * Bold text
 * Bold and italic
 * Bold and italic
 * Escape wiki markup
 * Escape wiki markup
 * Headings of different levels
 * Headings of different levels

Level 6
= Level 1 =

Level 6
Text above
 * Horizontal rule
 * Horizontal rule

Text below Text above

Text below don't break levels. Any other first character ends the list. don't break levels. Any other first character ends the list. don't break levels.
 * Bullet list
 * Bullet list
 * Start each line
 * with an asterisk (*).
 * More asterisks gives deeper
 * and deeper levels.
 * Line breaks
 * But jumping levels creates empty space.
 * Start each line
 * with an asterisk (*).
 * More asterisks gives deeper
 * and deeper levels.
 * Line breaks
 * Line breaks
 * But jumping levels creates empty space.
 * Numbered list
 * Numbered list
 * 1) Start each line
 * 2) with a number sign (#).
 * 3) More number signs gives deeper
 * 4) and deeper
 * 5) levels.
 * 6) Line breaks
 * 1) But jumping levels creates empty space.
 * 2) Blank lines

Any other first character also ends the list. don't break levels.
 * 1) end the list and start another.
 * 1) Start each line
 * 2) with a number sign (#).
 * 3) More number signs gives deeper
 * 4) and deeper
 * 5) levels.
 * 6) Line breaks
 * 1) Line breaks
 * 1) But jumping levels creates empty space.
 * 2) Blank lines

Any other first character also ends the list.
 * 1) end the list and start another.
 * Definition list
 * item 1
 * definition 1
 * item 1
 * definition 1


 * item 2
 * definition 2-1
 * definition 2-2


 * item 1
 * definition 1
 * definition 1


 * item 2
 * definition 2-1
 * definition 2-2


 * Adopting definition list to indent text
 * Single indent
 * Double indent
 * Multiple indent
 * Double indent
 * Multiple indent


 * Single indent
 * Double indent
 * Multiple indent
 * Multiple indent

of &lt;nowiki> &lt;/nowiki>
 * Mixture of different types of list
 * Mixture of different types of list
 * 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

of
 * 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
 * instead

Start each line with a space. Text is preformatted and markups can be done
 * 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
 * }

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 tags.

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

HTML symbols
An HTML symbol entity is a sequence of characters that produces one particular character. For example,  produces a right arrow " " and   produces an em dash " ". HTML symbol entities are allowed in MediaWiki and are sometimes used in advanced editing for two main reasons: to insert characters not normally available on keyboards:


 * &amp;copy; &rarr; &copy;
 * &amp;delta; &rarr; &delta;

and to prevent the parser from interpreting and displaying HTML tags and symbols:


 * &amp;amp;euro; &rarr; &amp;euro;
 * &amp;euro; &rarr; &euro;


 * &amp;lt;span style="color:green;">Green&amp;lt;/span> &rarr; &lt;span style="color:green;">Green&lt;/span>
 * &lt;span style="color:green;">Green&lt;/span> &rarr;  Green 

The following is a list of characters that can be produced using HTML symbols. Hover any character to find out the symbol that produces it. Some symbols not available in the current font will appear as empty squares.

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


 * Links
 * Images
 * Tables