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The "Show preview" button can be found at the bottom of the "Save dialogue" popup window. The Save dialogue is the popup window shown when clicking "Publish changes…" at the right-side of the toolbar at the top of theVisual Editor. Pressing this will show you what the article will look like without actually implementing your edits (i.e. publishing your changes online.) It is strongly recommended that you use this before hitting "Publish changes", which will cause your edits to be published onto the page and made visible immediately to everybody.
In the source editor, the "Show preview" button can be found at the bottom of the text editor box.
The edit options box looks like this:
Edit summary(Briefly describe your changes)
This is aminor edit
Watch this page
By publishing changes, you agree to theTerms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under theCC BY-SA 4.0 License and theGFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Use preview during editing to check what the page will look like once it's been saved (i.e. published online) and to check that you haven't made any errors. It also prevents the need for multiple 'publish changes'. Publishing the same article several times in quick succession makes it harder for people to check what changed, and clogs up thepage history. When making major edits, consider copying the content into yourclipboard. The Wikipedia servers sometimes have hiccups, and you could lose your work.
Tip: When you preview, you will also see a preview of theedit summary, so, e.g., links can be checked.
You can get a live preview, also known as Quick-preview or AJAX preview, whereby only the preview area will reload, as opposed to the entire page. You can enable this option in yourPreferences, by selecting the optionShow preview without reloading the page in theEditing section.
There are also several user scripts that provide similar or additional functionality, such as:
UsingShow preview prevents your login timing out, which would mean your edits would not be attributed to your username. Clicking preview regularly will restart the timer, so you remain logged in. Also, if you are no longer logged in, showing a preview will make you aware of this so you can log in and publish your work after that. You can check this by seeing if your username appears in the upper-right corner when you press preview. If you are not logged in, openSpecial:UserLogin in a separate window (right-click "Log in" and hit "Open link in new window" or similar). Log in, then go back to your editing and hit "preview" again to make sure all is well. Note that this will clear the minor edit and watch checkboxes, so make sure they're set appropriately again before you finally publish the page.
Typically, the noinclude-part of a template page contains examples including orsubstituting the template. Changes in the working of the template (i.e. changes outside the noinclude-part) are not yet effective in these examples in preview and, in the case ofsubstitution, in "show changes".