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This page explains theimage syntax when editing the wiki.You or another user must usuallyupload an image before you can use it on a page.
Images that are stored on a MediaWiki server are usually rendered by using theFile:
namespace prefix (but the legacyImage:
namespace prefix is still supported as a synonym) as the target of a MediaWiki link.The alternateMedia:
namespace prefix is also usable to reference the original media file content (for rendering or downloading it separately, out of any MediaWiki page).
Before using images in your page, the system administrator of your wiki must haveenabled file uploads and a user has toupload the file.System administrators may also set the wiki to accept files fromforeign repositories, such as theWikimedia Commons.For server side image resizing it is necessary to have a scaler configured (such as GD2, ImageMagick, etc.).
The following file formats are supported by default:
.jpg
or.jpeg
– bitmap image compressed in the standard JPEG format (this lossy format is most suitable for photographs)..png
– bitmap image in thePortable Network Graphics format (specified by theW3 Consortium)..gif
– bitmap image in the legacyGraphics Interchange Format..webp
–WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression while reducing image size by up to 45%.Other formats used on Wikimedia, and commonly enabled elsewhere (these may require extra set-up beyond what is enabled by default):
.svg
– scalable image in theScalable Vector Graphics format (specified by theW3 Consortium). SeeManual:Image Administration#SVG..tiff
– Tagged image format. Often used for high-resolution archival photographs. Often used withExtension:PagedTiffHandler..ogg
,.oga
,.ogv
– Ogg multimedia (audio or video). Not an image format, but treated similarly. Often used withExtension:TimedMediaHandler.pdf
– multipaged documents in thePortable Document Format (initially specified byAdobe). Often used in conjunction withExtension:PdfHandler.djvu
– multipaged bitmap documents in theDejaVu format (most often, scans of books). SeeManual:How to use DjVu with MediaWiki.pdf
or.djvu
file is shown at one time.Other media types may be supported, but it may not be possible to display them inline.
The full syntax for displaying an image is:
[[File:filename.extension|options|caption]]
whereoptions can be empty or containing one or more of the following lower-case words, separated by pipes (|):
$wgThumbLimits
) – or the default thumbnail size, for logged-out users or logged-in users who have not changed their preferences – to fit within reasonable dimensions. This option is often useful for images whose height is larger than their width. Requires eitherthumb orframeless. Setting|upright=1.0|
will display the image at the user's default image width.|upright=2.0|
will display the image at double the user's default width.upright
setting does not require an equals sign, i.e.|upright 2.0|
works the same as|upright=2.0|
.|upright|
), defaults to|upright=0.75|
(although|upright=|
is the same as|upright=1.0|
)[[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=http://www.wikipedia.org]]
renders as[[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=MediaWiki]]
renders as[[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=]]
renders aslink
and the equals sign, the link statement will be treated as a caption.%22
for"
, can cause the link statement to be treated as a caption (seephabricator:T306216).|link=|
(empty), then notitle
will be rendered. (Seephabricator:T23454.)alt="..."
of the generated<img/>
element) of an image that will be rendered if either the referenced image cannot be downloaded and embedded, or if the support media must use the alternative description text (e.g. when using a Braille reader or with accessibility options set by the user in its browser).alt
and the equals sign, the alt statement will be treated as a caption.class="..."
of the generated<span>...</span>
element wrapped around the<img/>
element).If a parameter does not match any of the other possibilities, it is assumed to be the caption text.If more than one non-parameter string is present, the final non-parameter string will be used as the caption.Caption text shows below the image inthumb andframe formats, or as tooltip text in any other format.Caption text displayed in thethumb andframe formats may contain wiki links and other formatting.MediaWiki extensions can add additional options.
If 'alt' is not specified and a caption is provided, the alternative text will be created automatically from the caption, stripped of formatting, except when inthumb orframe mode since the caption is already readable by screen readers in that case.
File thumbnails are stored in discrete sizes. If a page specifies a thumbnail size that's not among thestandard sizes (20, 40, 60, 120, 250, 330, 500, 960), then MediaWiki will pick the closest larger thumbnail size but will tell the browser to downscale it to the requested size. In these cases, nothing will change visually but users might load slightly larger images. If it doesn't matter which thumbnail size is used in a page, please pick one of the standard sizes to avoid the extra in-browser down-scaling step.
The following table shows the effect of all available formats.
When the height of an image in thumbnail is bigger than its width (i.e. in portrait orientation rather than landscape) and you find it too large, you may try the optionupright=N
, where N is the image's aspect ratio (its width divided by its height, defaulting to 0.75).The alternative is to specify the desired maximum height (in pixels) explicitly.
Note that by writingthumb={filename}
, you can use a different image for the thumbnail.
Among different formats, the effect of the size parameter may be different, as shown below.
border
ed, the size can be both reduced and enlarged to any specified size.frame
alwaysignores the size specification; the original image will be reduced if it exceeds the maximum size defined in user preferences, and the page information will display a Linter error.thumb
orframeless
can be reduced, but cannot be enlarged beyond the original size of the image.Note that when using theframe
orthumb[nail]
formats, the default horizontal alignment will beright for left-to-right languages, andleft for right-to-left languages.
The vertical alignment options take effect only if the imageis rendered as an inline element andis not floating.They alter the way the inlined image will be vertically aligned with the text present in the same block before and/or after this image on the same rendered row.
Note that the rendered line of text where inline images are inserted (and the lines of text rendered after the current one) may be moved down (this will increase the line-height conditionally by additional line spacing, just as it may occur with spans of text with variable font sizes, or with superscripts and subscripts) to allow the image height to be fully displayed with this alignment constraint.
<pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''top:''' [[File:Example.jpg|20px|top]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|top]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|top]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''text-top:''' [[File:Example.jpg|20px|text-top]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|text-top]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|text-top]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del><sup>super:</sup> [[File:Example.jpg|20px|super]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|super]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|super]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''baseline:''' [[File:Example.jpg|20px|baseline]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|baseline]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|baseline]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del><sub>'''sub:'''</sub> [[File:Example.jpg|20px|sub]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|sub]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|sub]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''default:''' [[File:Example.jpg|20px]][[File:Example.jpg|40px]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''middle:''' [[File:Example.jpg|20px|middle]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|middle]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|middle]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''text-bottom:''' [[File:Example.jpg|20px|text-bottom]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|text-bottom]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|text-bottom]]<del>text</del></u></span></p><pstyle="border:1px solid #AAA;padding:0;font-size:150%;line-height:2"><spanstyle="background:#FFF;color:#000;text-decoration:overline"><u><del>text</del>'''bottom:'' [[File:Example.jpg|20px|bottom]] [[File:Example.jpg|40px|bottom]] [[File:Example.jpg|100px|bottom]]<del>text</del></u></span></p>
To show the alignment result more clearly, the text spans are overlined and underlined, the font-size is increased to 200%, and the paragraph block is outlined with a thin border; additionally images of different sizes are aligned:
Notes:
On occasion it is desirable to stop text (or other inline non-floating images) from flowing around a floating image.Depending on the web browser's screen resolution and such, text flow on the right side of an image may cause a section header (for instance, == My Header ==) to appear to the right of the image, instead of below it, as a user may expect.The text flow can be stopped by placing<divstyle="clear: both"></div>
before the text that should start below the floating image.(This may also be done without an empty line by wrapping the section with the floating images with<divstyle="overflow: hidden">…</div>
, which clears all floats inside thediv
element.)
All images rendered as blocks (including non-floatingcentered images,left- orright-floating images, as well asframed orthumbnailed floating images) are implicitly breaking the surrounding lines of text (terminating the current block of text before the image, and creating a new paragraph for the text after them).They will then stack vertically along their left or right alignment margin (or along the center line between these margins forcentered images).
The following table shows how to alter the link target (whose default is the imagedescription page) or how to remove it.Changing the link does not alter the format described in the previous sections.
Description | You type | You get |
---|---|---|
internal link | ... text text text[[File:example.jpg|link=Main Page|caption]]text text text ... | ... text text text |
external link | ... text text text[[File:example.jpg|link=http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Test|caption]]text text text ... | ... text text text |
no link (external or file page) | ... text text text[[File:example.jpg|link=|caption]]text text text ... | ... text text text
|
It's easy to make a gallery of thumbnails with the<gallery>
tag.The syntax is:
<gallery>File:file_name.ext|caption|alt=alt languageFile:file_name.ext|caption|alt=alt language{...}</gallery>
Note that the image code is not enclosed in brackets when enclosed in gallery tags.
Captions are optional, and may contain wiki links or other formatting.
Some of the parameters controlling thumb output can also be used here, specifically the ones that modify the file (as opposed to ones that control where in the page the image falls).For example, with multi-paged media like pdfs, you can use code likepage=4
and with videos you can usethumbtime=10
.
TheFile:
prefix can be omitted.However, it is helpful to include it as an aid for quickly locating image specifiers in the wikitext (for example, when cleaning up page layout).
If the image links to an external site, the caption must comebefore the link parameter or the caption will not render.
For example:
<gallery>File:Example.jpg|Item 1File:Example.jpg|a link to[[Help:Contents]]File:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpg|alt=An example image. It has flowersFile:Example.jpg|''italic caption''File:Example.jpg|link=https://example.com|This text will not render because an external link came firstFile:Example.jpg|Links to external website|link=https://example.comFile:Example.jpg|link=w:Main_Page|Internal linkExample.jpg|on page "{{PAGENAME}}"File:Using Firefox.pdf|page=72</gallery>
is formatted as:
MediaWiki version: | ≥ 1.22 |
Starting in MediaWiki version 1.22 amode
parameter is available, taking options as follows:
traditional
is the original gallery type used by MediaWiki.nolines
is similar totraditional
, but with no border lines.packed
causes images to have the same height but different widths, with little space between the images. The rows in thisresponsive mode organize themselves according to the width of the screen.packed-overlay
shows the caption overlaid on the image, in a semi-transparent white box.packed-hover
is similar topacked-overlay
, but with the caption and box only showing up on hover.slideshow
creates a slideshow of the images.For example:
<gallery mode="packed-hover">File:Astronotus_ocellatus.jpg|''[[commons:Astronotus ocellatus|Astronotus ocellatus]]'' (Oscar)File:Salmonlarvakils.jpg|''[[commons:Salmo salar|Salmo salar]]'' (Salmon Larva)File:Georgia Aquarium - Giant Grouper.jpg|''[[commons:Epinephelus lanceolatus|Epinephelus lanceolatus]]'' (Giant grouper)File:Pterois volitans Manado-e.jpg|''[[commons:Pterois volitans|Pterois volitans]]'' (Red Lionfish)File:Macropodus opercularis - front (aka).jpg|''[[commons:Macropodus opercularis|Macropodus opercularis]]'' (Paradise fish)File:Canthigaster valentini 1.jpg|''[[commons:Canthigaster valentini|Canthigaster valentini]]'' (Valentinni's sharpnose puffer)File:Flughahn.jpg|[[File:POTY ribbon 2007.svg|25px]]''[[commons:Dactylopterus volitans|Dactylopterus volitans]]'' (Flying gurnard)File:Fishmarket 01.jpg|''[[commons:Semicossyphus pulcher|Semicossyphus pulcher]]'' (California Sheephead)File:Pseudorasbora parva(edited version).jpg|''[[commons:Category:Pseudorasbora parva|Pseudorasbora parva]]'' (Topmouth gudgeon)File:MC Rotfeuerfisch.jpg|''[[commons:Category:Pterois antennata|Pterois antennata]]'' (Antennata Lionfish)File:Cleaning station konan.jpg|''[[commons:Novaculichthys taeniourus|Novaculichthys taeniourus]]''File:Synchiropus splendidus 2 Luc Viatour.jpg|''[[commons:Synchiropus splendidus|Synchiropus splendidus]]'' (Mandarin fish)File:Psetta maxima Luc Viatour.jpg|''[[commons:Psetta maxima|Psetta maxima]]'' (Turbot)File:Australian blenny.jpg|''[[commons:Category:Ecsenius|Ecsenius axelrodi]]''</gallery>
Gives (mode:packed-hover
):
Examples of the other modes:
mode="traditional"
mode="nolines"
mode="packed"
mode="packed-overlay"
mode="packed-hover"
MediaWiki version: | ≥ 1.28 |
mode="slideshow"
The gallery tag itself takes several additional parameters, specified as attribute name-value pairs:
<gallery{parameters}>{images}</gallery>
caption="{caption}"
: (caption text between double quotes for more than one word) sets a caption centered atop the gallery. Only plain text may be used in the caption; formatting, templates and the like will not work.widths={width}
: sets the (max) widths of the images in pixels; thedefault value is 120px. (It has no effect if mode is set to one of the following: packed, packed-overlay, packed-hover, slideshow.)Note the plural: widths.heights={heights}
: sets the (max) heights of the images in pixels; the default value is 120px. (It has no effect if mode is set to slideshow.)perrow={integer}
: sets the number of images per row. (It has no effect if mode is set to one of the following: packed, packed-overlay, packed-hover, slideshow.) The default isperrow=0
which automatically adjusts the number of images per row based on width of screen.showfilename={anything}
: Show the filenames of the images in the individual captions for each image (1.17+).mode={traditional|nolines|packed|packed-hover|packed-overlay|slideshow}
: See section above (1.22+; 1.28+ for "slideshow").showthumbnails
: For "slideshow" mode only, display the strip with image thumbnails below the slideshow by default (1.29+).<ul>
tag (e.g.id
,title
,class
)Syntax:
<gallerywidths=300heights=200>File:Example.jpg|Lorem ipsumFile:Example.jpg|Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut</gallery>
Result:
Syntax:
<gallerywidths=60heights=60perrow=7caption="sunflowers are groovy">File:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpgFile:Example.jpg</gallery>
Result:
One way that works for a row of images with varying widths is not to use "thumb" or "left" or "none".If "thumb" is not used (and thus no captions) a row of images will wrap to the browser width.If necessary, narrow the browser window to see the images wrap to the next row.
[[File:Example.jpg|220px]][[File:Example.jpg|100px]][[File:Example.jpg|150px]][[File:Example.jpg|250px]][[File:Example.jpg|200px]][[File:Example.jpg|50px]][[File:Example.jpg|220px]][[File:Example.jpg|175px]]
To wrap images of varying widths with captions it is necessary to use div HTML for an unordered list. Along withstyle="display: inline-block;"
. For more info and ideas see:Give Floats the Flick in CSS Layouts.
<div><ul><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|220px|Caption 1]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|100px|Caption 2]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|150px|Caption 3]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|250px|Caption 4]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|200px|Caption 5]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|50px|Caption 6]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|220px|Caption 7]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|175px|Caption 8]]</li></ul></div>
Toalign the top edge of images add the vertical-align command
<div><ul><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|220px|Caption 1]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|100px|Caption 2]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|150px|Caption 3]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|250px|Caption 4]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|200px|Caption 5]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|50px|Caption 6]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|220px|Caption 7]]</li><listyle="display: inline-block; vertical-align: top;"> [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|none|175px|Caption 8]]</li></ul></div>
Some wiki farms do not have all gallery options (such as "widths").Also, sometimes one wants varying widths for images in a row.Outside of a gallery, or the div HTML, it is impossible to have individual captions for images in a row of images that will wrap to the browser width.Try it and see. Nothing else using wikitext works correctly. Images will either overlap stuff on the right, or force a horizontal scroll bar.
Using a left float ("left") for some images, combined with "none" for some of the images, will not work consistently either, especially if there is also a right sidebar of images.Weird things will occur.At narrower browser or screen widths an image out of the row may appear far down the page after the end of the right sidebar of images.
By default an image links to its file description page.The "link=" option modifies this behavior to link to another page or website, or to turn off the image's linking behavior.
Alternatively, you can create a text link to a file description page or to the file itself.SeeHelp:Linking to files.
Use "link=" option to link image to another page or website:
Clicking on the below image will take you toMediaWiki:
[[File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg|50px|link=MediaWiki]]
Clicking on the below image will take you toexample.com:
[[File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg|50px|link=http://example.com]]
Use "link=" option with no value assigned to turn link off entirely; the below image is not a link:
[[File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg|50px|link=]]
Add:
as a prefix to the link you need to create.
[[:File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg]]
[[:File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg|Wiki]]
The above examples link to the image's description page.To directly link to an image, the pseudo-namespaceMedia:
can be used on MediaWiki pages:
[[Media:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg]]
Another possibility is to use theSpecial:Redirect/file page (or its aliasSpecial:Filepath).Unlike the above example, you can link to it from external websites as well as from MediaWiki pages.
[[Special:Redirect/file/Wikipedia.png]]
The parametersheight
andwidth
can also be added to return a specific size of the image.The image aspect ratio is always preserved.
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Redirect/file/Wikipedia.png&width=100&height=100
To obtain the full path of an image (without going through redirects as shown above), someMagic words can be used.
{{filepath:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg}}
Becomes:
In the event that this is used from a template where theFile:
namespace needs to be removed,{{PAGENAME}}
can do so:
{{filepath:{{PAGENAME:File:MediaWiki-2020-logo.svg}}}}
Becomes:
You can link to an external file available online using the same syntax used for linking to an external web page.With these syntaxes, the image will not be rendered, but only the text of the link to this image will be displayed.
[http://url.for/some/image.png]
Or with a different displayed text:
[http://url.for/some/image.png link text here]
Additional MediaWiki markup or HTML/CSS formatting (for inline elements) is permitted in this displayed text (except for embedded links that would break the surrounding link):
[http://www.example.com/some/image.png Example '''<del>rich</del>''' ''<ins>link text</ins>'' here.]
which renders as:Examplerichlink text here.
If it is enabled on your wiki (seeManual:$wgAllowExternalImages), you can also embed external images. To do that, simply insert the image's URL:
http://url.for/some/image.png
Embedded images can be resized by the CSStransform
property. They also may be formatted by surrounding MediaWiki markup or HTML/CSS code.
If this wiki option is not enabled, the image will not be embedded but rendered as a textual link to the external site, just like above, unless the site'sManual:$wgAllowExternalImagesFrom has a value.
It is also possible to useInstantCommons or othershared file repositories to load files from other wikis, which are treated as if they were local images.