Help:Wiki markup

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This page is a tutorial for learning to work with the essential rules of wiki-formatted text, or "wikitext". Wikitext is designed to be as simple as possible so that an article may be quickly typed and styled without having to take a break to type out long HTML codes. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to channel your thoughts into writing the perfect article (or even a not-so-perfect article!).

Text formatting

Creating italicized or bold text is the simplest rule — simply use the apostrophe character in groups of two or three to create the style. (Be sure to use the "straight" apostrophe and not the curved "smart quote" characters used in some text editors and word processors!)

What you type	What you see
''italicized text''	italicized text
'''bold text'''	bold text
'''''italicized and bold text'''''	italicized and bold text

To create a tabbed list or a block of text using a monospace font, start the line with a space. (Be sure not to make the line too long, or it will stretch the page horizontally!) Text can also be indented in blockquotes using the colon character.

What you type	What you see
Preformatted text	Preformatted text
: Indented text	Indented text

Lists

Both unordered and numbered lists are simple to create as well: simply use the asterisk or hash characters at the beginning of a line to create the entry. To create nested lists, simply add an extra asterisk or hash to the front of the line. You can even mix and match the kinds of list in a single group!

What you type	What you see
* Item One * Item Two	Item One Item Two
# Item One # Item Two	Item One Item Two
* Item One ** Item Two	Item One Item Two
* Item One *# Item Two	Item One Item Two
; term : definition	term  definition

Links and URLs

In a wiki, it's important to help build the web by creating links to other articles in every appropriate context. Use the following techniques to create "free links" to other OpenVistA Wiki articles:

What you type	What you see
[[OpenVistA Wiki]]	OpenVistA Wiki
[[USS Enterprise|USS ''Enterprise'']]	USS Enterprise
[[This article doesn't exist]]	This article doesn't exist
[[OpenVistA Wiki:Policies and Guidelines]]	OpenVistA Wiki:Policies and Guidelines
[[OpenVistA Wiki:Policies and Guidelines|]]	Policies and Guidelines

You can also make external links to other websites using the following formatting rules:

What you type	What you see
[[Wikipedia:Star Trek]]	Wikipedia:Star Trek
[[Wikipedia:Star Trek|Star Trek]]	Star Trek
http://www.memory-alpha.org/	http://www.memory-alpha.org/
[http://www.memory-alpha.org/]	[1]
[http://www.memory-alpha.org/ OpenVistA Wiki]	OpenVistA Wiki

See also: Interwiki links

Sections

If an article is long enough, you can divide the page into different sections. OpenVistA Wiki will automatically generate a table of contents based on the content for all articles with more than three sections.

You can also create a horizontal divider by using four dashes in a row.

What you type	What you see
== Header Two ==	Header Two
=== Header Three ===	Header Three
==== Header Four ====	Header Four
----

Images and other media

See: Help: Image markup

Tables

See: Help: Table markup

Mathematical formulae

See: Help: Math markup

Variables

The MediaWiki software has a number of built-in variables for common elements that may change depending on the date.

Code	Effect
{{CURRENTMONTH}}	11
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}	November
{{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}	November
{{CURRENTDAY}}	21
{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}	Thursday
{{CURRENTYEAR}}	2024
{{CURRENTTIME}}	21:46
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}	2,606

NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect (i.e. number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages).

See also: Help:Template

Suppressing markup

It's also possible to tell MediaWiki to ignore any of the above rules using a simple tag:

What you type	What you see
<nowiki>'''text here'''</nowiki>	'''text here'''