Community Central
Register
Community Central

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 the Visual Editor to avoid it. However, users who learn it may appreciate the additional control they have over page content.

Wikitext can be used via source 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 in preferences, and it will open by default when you click the edit button.

Below is an outline of basic wikitext that you can use while editing. 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> small text
Big Text big <span style="font-size:larger;">text</span> big text
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 style="color:dodgerblue;">Help:Contents</span>]] Help:Contents
Redirect to another page #REDIRECT [[Help:Contents]] latest 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 23:56,

18 March 2024 (UTC)

Insert the current date and time (UTC). Generally only used on talk pages. ~~~~~ (5 tildes) 23:56, 18 March 2024 (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
Code that works only at the start of a line
Description You type You get
Headings

A table of contents will automatically be generated when four headings are added to an article.

(Skip level 1; it's used for the page name.)

== Level 2 ==
=== Level 3 ===
==== Level 4 ====
===== Level 5 =====
====== Level 6 ======

Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Level 6
Horizontal rule
Text before
----
Text after

Text before


Text after

Indented paragraph or line

No indent
: One indent
:: Two indents

No indent

One indent
Two indents
Bulleted list

* One
* Two
** Two point one
* Three

  • One
  • Two
    • Two point one
  • Three
Numbered list

# One
# Two
## Two point one
# Three

  1. One
  2. Two
    1. Two point one
  3. Three
Mixed list

* bulleted item
*# numbered item 1
*#: indented item a
*#: indented item b
*# numbered item 2

  • bulleted item
    1. numbered item 1
      indented item a
      indented item b
    2. numbered item 2
Definition list
;item 1
: definition 1
;item 2
: definition 2-1
: definition 2-2
item 1
definition 1
item 2
definition 2-1
definition 2-2
Preformatted text with working links

" "[[Help:Color|Color]] Text (note space at start, remove quotation marks)

Color Text
Preformatted text that shows underlying wikitext

<pre>[[Color]] Text</pre>

[[Color]] Text

Image formatting[]

Description You type You get
Image [[File:SeaOtter.png]] SeaOtter
Sized image
(width change with aspect ratio maintained)
[[File:SeaOtter.png|100px]] SeaOtter
Thumbnail image [[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|Caption text]]
SeaOtter

Caption text

Aligned image

[[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|100px|left]] [[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|100px|center]] [[File:SeaOtter.png|thumb|100px|right]]

SeaOtter
SeaOtter
SeaOtter
Linked image [[File:SeaOtter.png|link=Help:Contents]] SeaOtter
Changed alt text [[File:SeaOtter.png|alt=A sea otter]] 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>.

Without <br> With <br>

Don't break lines

Do break
lines


HTML tags[]

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

Description You type You get
Inserted
(Displays as underline in most browsers)
<ins>Inserted</ins>

or

<u>Underline</u>

Inserted

or

Underline

Deleted
(Displays as strikethrough in most browsers)
<s>Struck out</s>

or

<del>Deleted</del>

Struck out

or

Deleted

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

or

<code>Fixed width text</code>

Source code

or

Fixed width text

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

Text before

Blockquote

Text after

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

Comments are only visible in the edit zone.

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

 Text is '''preformatted''' and 
''markups'' '''''cannot''''' be done
Customized preformatted text
<pre style="color: red">
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) &rarr; when inserted will be shown as right arrow HTML symbol → and &mdash; when inserted will be shown as an em 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.

HTML symbol entities
Á á Â â ´ Æ æ À à Α α & Å å Ã ã Ä ä Β β ¦ Ç ç ¸ ¢
Χ χ ˆ © ¤ ° Δ δ ÷ É é Ê ê È è Ε ε Η η
Ð ð Ë ë ƒ ½ ¼ ¾ Γ γ > Í í Î î ¡ Ì ì Ι ι
¿ Ï ï Κ κ Λ λ « < ¯ µ · Μ μ  
¬ Ñ ñ Ν ν Ó ó Ô ô Œ œ Ò ò Ω ω Ο ο ª º Ø ø Õ õ Ö
ö Φ φ Π π ϖ ± £ Ψ ψ " » ® Ρ ρ
Š š § ­ Σ σ ς ¹ ² ³ ß Τ τ Θ θ ϑ Þ þ ˜
× Ú ú Û û Ù ù ¨ ϒ Υ υ Ü ü Ξ ξ Ý ý ¥ ÿ Ÿ Ζ ζ

Description

You type

You get

Copyright symbol

&copy;
©

Greek delta letter symbol

&delta;
δ

Euro currency symbol

&euro;

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

  • &amp;euro;  → &euro;
  • <span style="color: red; text-decoration: line-through;"> Typo to be corrected</span>  → Typo to be corrected
  • &lt;span style="color: red; text-decoration: line-through;">Typo to be corrected</span>  → <span style="color: red; text-decoration: line-through;">Typo to be corrected</span>

Nowiki for HTML[]

<nowiki /> can prohibit (HTML) tags:

  • <<nowiki />pre>  → <pre>

But not & symbol escapes:

  • &<nowiki />amp;  → &

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

Further wikitext examples[]

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

See also[]

Further help and feedback[]