[Home]TextFormattingRules

HomePage | RecentChanges | Preferences

Wiki Text Formatting Rules

Borrowed from the Usemodwiki [site]

Simple editing is one of the major benefits of using a wiki. Users can edit pages without knowing HTML, and still use many formatting features of HTML. Most wikis define a set of formatting rules to convert plain text into HTML. Some wikis (like this one) also allow some HTML "tags", like <b>, <i>, and <pre> within a page. (Some wikis use raw HTML instead of special formatting rules.)

| Tips | Hints The following text is an overview of the UseModWiki? [Aria Giovanni] text formatting rules. For examples without all the explanatory text, see the TextFormattingExamples?. To try these rules for yourself, please feel free to edit the SandBox page. To see how any page is formatted, just follow the link "Edit text of this page" at the bottom of the page.

Basic Text Formatting:

Entering text on a wiki can be done simply. Follow these guidelines:
Repetition of the first character on the line generally increases the indentation or emphasis

Additional Text Formatting Rules:

/WikiTextFormatting?
/WikiLists?
/WikiHeadings?
/WikiImages?
/WikiLines?

Page, URL, and InterWiki? Links:

You can link to a page by removing the spaces between two or more words, and starting each word with a capital letter. For instance, WikiName? and TextFormattingExamples? are samples of page links.

Nonexistent pages, like SampleUndefinedPage?, will be displayed with a question mark link. The question mark link indicates the page doesn't exist yet--follow the link to create and edit the page. [The sample page used here is a special example page--you can't define it.]

Inline link: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SandBox -- http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SandBox

Inline link: [with anchor] -- [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SandBox with anchor]

InterWiki? link: UseMod?:InterWiki? -- UseMod:InterWiki

You can separate links from adjacent text with spaces or the special "" (two double-quotes) delimiter. The "" delimiter is not displayed--it is useful for cases like plural forms of page links (such as UseModWiki?s). In nearly all cases trailing punctuation is ignored, so you can safely make links like http://www.usemod.com/, without the trailing comma being part of the link. You can also use FreeLinks.

Lists:

Simple lists:
* Text for a bulleted list item.
** Text for second-level list.
*** Text for third level, etc.
---

...which looks like:

Numbered lists:

# Text for a numbered list item.
## Text for second-level list.
### Text for third level, etc.
## Another Text for the second level.

...which looks like:

  1. Text for a numbered list item.
    1. Text for second-level list.
      1. Text for third level, etc.
    2. Another Text for the second level.

Definition Text:

Term with indented definition: [without a blank line between term and definition]
;Term:Definition (indented)
;;Term (indented):Definition (indented two levels)
;;;Term (indented twice):Definition (indented to third level)

...which looks like:

Term
Definition (indented)
Term (indented)
Definition (indented two levels)
Term (indented twice)
Definition (indented to third level)

Images

Just provide the URL, and the image will be inserted inline.

These extensions are recognized: gif, jpg, png, bmp, jpeg

If you have a choice, results are usually best with png for computer generated images, and JPEG for photographic images.

Preformatted Text

Individual lines can be displayed as preformatted (fixed-width or "typewriter"-font) text by placing one or more spaces at the start of the line. Other wiki formatting (like links) will be applied to this kind of preformatted text.

Additionally, multi-line sections can be marked as pre-formatted text using lines starting with <pre> (to start pre-formatted text), and </pre> (to end preformatted text). The <pre> and </pre> tags are not displayed. Wiki links and other formatting is not done within a preformatted section. (If you want wiki formatting, use spaces at the start of the line instead of the <pre> and </pre> tags.)

For instance:

[http://www.51asa.com/index2.htm pw]
Pre-formatted section here.  No other link
  or format processing
is done on pre-formatted sections.
For instance, UseModWiki is not a link here.
and:

   This is the starting-spaces version of
   preformatted text.  Note that links like
   UseModWiki? still work.

Miscellaneous rules:

HTML



HomePage | RecentChanges | Preferences
This page is read-only | View other revisions
Last edited September 20, 2004 7:10 am by Numenius (diff)
Search: