Help:Wiki markup

Wiki markup is the you use to format a FamilySearch Wiki page.

Links and URLs
The following characters are used to create links:, as denoted by the following sections:

Images
Only images that have been uploaded to Wikipedia can be used. To upload images, use the upload page. You can find the uploaded image on the image list.

See the Wikipedia's image use policy as a guideline used on Wikipedia.

For further help on images, including some more versatile abilities, see the picture tutorial.

Section headings
Use headings to split articles into sections. Put a heading on a separate line. A level-two heading is the highest level editors use in an article.

{| class="wikitable" border="1" ! style="width: 50%" | What it looks like ! style="width: 50%" | What you type Headings organize your writing into sections. The Wiki software can automatically generate a table of contents from them. Subsection Using more equals signs creates a subsection. A smaller subsection Start with 2 equals signs. Don't skip levels, like from two to four equals signs.
 * Section headings
 * Section headings


 * ==Section headings==

Headings organize your writing into sections. The Wiki software can automatically generate a table of contents from them.

Subsection
Using more equals signs creates a subsection.

A smaller subsection
Start with 2 equals signs. Don't skip levels, like from two to four equals signs. Separating with a horizontal dividing line:
 * Horizontal line
 * Horizontal line


 * this is above it...


 * ...and this is below it.

If you don't use a section header, you don't get a TOC entry.

this is above it...
 * A horizontal dividing line:

...and this is below it.
 * }

Special characters
Symbols and other special characters not available on your keyboard can be inserted through a special sequence of characters. Those sequences are called. For example, the following sequence (entity) &amp;rarr; when inserted will be shown as right arrow HTML symbol &rarr; and &amp;mdash; when inserted will be shown as an em dash HTML symbol &mdash;.

Some special characters by topic:

No or limited formatting
—showing exactly what is being typed A few different kinds of formatting will tell the Wiki to display things as you typed them — what you see, is what you get!

Invisible text (comments)
It's uncommon, but on occasion acceptable for notes to other editors ( see MOS ), to add a hidden comment within the text of an article. These comments are only visible when editing or viewing the source of a page. Most comments should go on the appropriate Talk page. The format is to surround the hidden text with '' and may cover several lines, e.g.:

Table of contents
When a page has at least four headings, a table of contents (TOC) will appear in front of the first header (after the lead). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first heading). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to disappear. See also Compact TOC for alphabet and year headings.

Tables
There are two ways to build tables:


 * in special Wiki-markup (see Table)
 * Using HTML elements: &lt;table&gt;, &lt;tr&gt;, &lt;td&gt; or &lt;th&gt;.

For the latter, and a discussion on when tables are appropriate, see When to use tables.

Variables
(See also Variable)

NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect, in other words number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages.

CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN is the genitive (possessive) grammatical form of the month name, as used in some languages; CURRENTMONTHNAME is the nominative (subject) form, as usually seen in English.

In languages where it makes a difference, you can use constructs like to convert a word from the nominative case to some other case. For example, means the same as.

Templates and Transcluding Pages
Templates are segments of Wiki markup that are meant to be copied automatically ("transcluded") into a page. You add them by putting the template's name in. It is also possible to transclude other pages by using.

There are three pairs of tags that can be used in Wikitext to control how transclusion affects parts of a template or article. They determine whether or not wikitext renders, either in its own article, which we will call "here", or in another article where it is transcluded, which we will call "there".


 *  : the content will not be rendered there. These tags have no effect here.
 *  : the content will render only there, and will not render here (like Invisible ink made visible by means of transclusion).
 *  : the content will render here and will render there, but it will only render there what is between these tags.

There can be several such section "elements". Also, they can be nested. All possible renderings are achievable. For example, to render there one or more sections of the page here use   tags. To append text there, wrap the addition in   tags above, within, or below the section. To omit portions of the section, nest   tags within it.

If a page is transcluded without transclusion markup, it may cause an unintentional categorization. Any page transcluding it will contain the same category as the original page. Wrap the category markup with   tags to prevent incorrect categorization.

Some templates take parameters, as well, which you separate with the pipe character.

HTML
Many HTML tags can be used in in Wiki markup, see Help:HTML in wikitext for a list.