Help:Basic MediaWiki Syntax

This is a brief introduction to MediaWiki source syntax. For a more comprehensive guide, see here.

Text

Description	You type	You get
Applies anywhere
Italicise text	''italic''	italic
Bold text	'''bold'''	bold
Bold and italic	'''''bold & italic'''''	bold & italic
Internal link (within the Computer History wiki) This, and the one above, can be combined.	[[name of page]] [[name of page|display text]] [[name of page#heading]]	name of page display text name of page#heading
Wikipedia style, followed here, is generally to only link the first instance of a term on a page. See below for the syntax for adding additional anchors (link targets).
External link (to other websites) The middle one is much preferred.	[http://www.example.org] [http://www.example.org display text] http://www.example.org	[1] display text http://www.example.org
Text can be commented out	matching <!-- and --> around text to be ignored
Sign your posts on talk pages	~~~~	Your username 15:26, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
Items below only apply at the beginning of a line
Headings A Table of Contents will automatically be generated when four headings are added to an article. For a reason that has been lost in the mists of time, Wikipedia (and thus here) uses '==' as the top level section marker; '=' seems to work now, but please keep up the style.	== Level 1 == === Level 2 === ==== Level 3 ==== ===== Level 4 ===== ====== Level 5 ======	Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5
Indented items (used mostly on Talk: pages)	: foo :: bar	foo bar
Bullet list	* one * two ** two point one * three	one two two point one three
Numbered list	# one # two ## two point one # three	one two two point one three

To add additional anchors (link targets) at arbitrary locations inside an article, use the following syntax:

<span id="Anchor">Optional text</span>

These anchors can be used in both internal and external links.

Pre-formatted text

There are a number of ways to include pre-formatted text (e.g. source code fragments); all of these techniques also use a fixed-width font for the text:

• Start each line with a space character; normal markups can be used; e.g.:

" This is '''pre-formatted''' text"

produces:

This is pre-formatted text

• Use the HTML <nowiki> tag, with a space character before the <nowiki>. (Remember to add a matching closing tag after the pre-formatted text block).

• Use the HTML <pre> tag (again, remember the closing tag).

Note that the HTML <blockquote> tag only indents the block; text within it will still be justified.

Tables

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Table !! Prototype
|-
| colspan="2" | Headers
|-
| aa || rowspan="2" | yy
|-
| bb
|-
| cc || zz
|}

produces:

Table	Prototype
Headers
aa	yy
bb
cc	zz

Images

Including the special form:

[[File:Pdp1115.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Caption text]]

produces:

Caption text

(The legacy keyword 'Image' may be used in place of "File".) Leaving out the "150px" inserts the image full-size. The optional keywords 'left' and 'right' can be added to control the horizontal placement.

(Notice that this text fills up around the image. Add a <br clear=all> after the image line to force the text to re-start below the image.)

New images can be uploaded via the 'Upload file' page (link on the left-hand side of all pages).

A lengthy tutorial on images is here; complete specifications for the use of the 'File' special form are available here and here.

See also

• MediaWiki.org help pages - a wealth of detail
  • Help:Formatting - detailed help on formatting
  • Help:Tables - ditto for tables