Help:Wikitext

Wikitext is the main markup language used to format content on Fandom. It can be used to add photos, tables, bold styles, links, and many other visual changes.

It's not necessary to know wikitext in order to edit a page: you can use theVisual Editor to avoid it. However, users who learn it may appreciate the additional control they have over page content.

Wikitext can be used viasource editor in either editor. To access an article's wikitext:

• Visual Editor: click "VisualEditor" in the top middle, above the edit bar, which will open a menu where you can select "Source editing".
• Before editing, you can go right to source mode by clicking the arrow next to the edit button, and clicking "edit source" from the drop-down menu.
• When editing a section of an article, click "edit source" to edit that section in source.

On both platforms, you can also choose your preferred editor inpreferences, and it will open by default when you click the edit button.

Below is an outline of basic wikitext that you can use whileediting. Many of the options listed below have shortcut buttons in the editor toolbars.

Text formatting[]

Inline wikitext: code you can use anywhere in the page

Description	You type	You get
Italicize text	''italic''	italic
Bold text	'''bold'''	bold
Underlined text	<u>underline</u>	underline
Bold and italic	'''''bold & italic'''''	bold & italic
Strikethrough	<s>strikethrough</s>	strikethrough
Superscript	1<sup>st</sup>	1st
Subscript	O<sub>2</sub>	O2
Small Text	small <small>text</small>	smalltext
Big Text	big <span>text</span>	bigtext
Blockquote text	<blockquote>This is a blockquote</blockquote>	This is a blockquote
Internal link (within a wiki)	[[Help:Contents]] [[Help:Contents|Displayed text]]	Help:Contents Displayed text
Colored link	[[Help:Contents|<span>Help:Contents</span>]]	Help:Contents
Redirect to another page	#REDIRECT [[Help:Contents]]	Help:Contents
External link (to other websites)	[https://www.example.org] [https://www.example.org displayed text] https://www.example.org	[1] displayed text https://www.example.org
Cite link	<cite>https://www.fandom.com/</cite>	https://www.fandom.com/
Sign your posts on talk pages (username only)	~~~	Your username
Sign your posts on talk pages	~~~~ (4 tildes)	Your username 07:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Insert the current date and time (UTC). Generally only used on talk pages.	~~~~~ (5 tildes)	07:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Display wikitext code as typed	<nowiki>[[This is not a link]]</nowiki>	[[This is not a link]]
Display text as source code	<code>Source Code</code>	Source Code

Text before----Text after

;item 1: definition 1;item 2: definition 2-1: definition 2-2

Color Text

[[Color]] Text

Image formatting[]

Description	You type	You get
Image	[[File:SeaOtter.png]]
Sized image (width change with aspect ratio maintained)	[[File:SeaOtter.png|100px]]
Thumbnail image	[[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|Caption text]]
Aligned image	[[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|100px|left]][[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|100px|center]][[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|100px|right]]
Linked image	[[File:SeaOtter.png|link=Help:Contents]]
Changed alt text	[[File:SeaOtter.png|alt=A sea otter]]
Direct link to image	[[Media:SeaOtter.png]]	Media:SeaOtter.png

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<br>.

HTML tags[]

SomeHTML tags are allowed in MediaWiki, for example<code>,<div>,<span> and<font>. These apply anywhere you insert them.

<ins>Inserted</ins>or<u>Underline</u>

<s>Struck out</s>or<del>Deleted</del>

<code>Source code</code>or<code>Fixed width text</code>

Text before<blockquote>Blockquote</blockquote>Text after

<!-- This is a comment -->Comments are only visible in the edit zone.

<pre> Text is '''preformatted''' and ''markups'' '''''cannot''''' be done</pre>

 Text is '''preformatted''' and ''markups'' '''''cannot''''' be done

<pre>Text is '''preformatted''' with a style and ''markups'' '''''cannot''''' be done</pre>

Text is '''preformatted''' with a style and ''markups'' '''''cannot''''' be done

Inserting symbols[]

Symbols and other special characters not available on your keyboard can be inserted through a special sequence of characters. Those sequences are called HTML entities. For example, the following sequence (entity)→ when inserted will be shown asright arrow HTML symbol → and— when inserted will be shown as anem dash HTML symbol —.

Hover over any character to find out the symbol that it produces. Some symbols not available in the current font will appear as empty squares.

©

δ

€

See the list of all HTML entities on the Wikipedia articleList of HTML entities. Additionally, MediaWiki supports two non-standard entity reference sequences:&רלמ; and&رلم; which are both considered equivalent to‏ which is aright-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[]

• €  →€

• <span> Typo to be corrected</span>  →Typo to be corrected

• &lt;span>Typo to be corrected</span>  →<span>Typo to be corrected</span>

Nowiki for HTML[]

<nowiki />can prohibit (HTML) tags:

• <<nowiki />pre>  → <pre>

Butnot & symbol escapes:

• &<nowiki />amp;  → &

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

Further wikitext examples[]

For more complex content that is sometimes more easily managed with wikitext editing, see:

• Help:Galleries
• Help:Main page column tags
• Help:Templates
• Help:Signature
• Help:Tables
• Help:Magic words

See also[]

• Help:Editing
• MediaWiki's examples ofFormatting
• MediaWiki's thorough reference onimage formatting
• For print cheatsheets, see theMediaWiki reference card or theposter-size cheatsheet (available in many languages)

Further help and feedback[]

• Browse and search other help pages atHelp:Contents
• CheckFandom Community Central for sources of further help and support
• CheckContacting Fandom for how to report any errors or unclear steps in this article