Help:Basic Formatting

This page is for assisting in basic formatting of text on wiki pages.

Boldness and Italics
Boldness can be performed simply by using three apostrophes on each side of the text you wish to boldify. For example,

This is bold text

becomes This is bold text

Italics can be perfomed by using two apostrophes on either side of the text you wish to italicise. For example,

This is italicised text

becomes This is italicised text

Naturally, these two can be combined:

This is bold and italicised

becomes This is bold and italicised

In order to print something like multiple apostrophes or tildes (without wiki interpreting), use the nowiki tag: Here are five apostrophes in a row without bold italics.

Signatures
Users can leave timestamped signatures to identify themselves. Three tildes inserts the user's name, four tildes  inserts the user's name with a timestamp, and five tildes  gives just a timestamp with no name. You can also insert your signature with timestamp from edit screen toolbar (second button from the right).


 * Three tildes: Odd Starter talk
 * Four tildes: Odd Starter talk 14:23, 10 March 2006 (GMT)
 * Five tildes: 14:23, 10 March 2006 (GMT)

Signatures should be used on all talk pages. On other pages signatures should not be used.

Headings and Subheadings
Put a heading on a separate row with an equals signs on each side:

=Major Section Title=

in order to create a section heading. Use additional equals signs to create smaller and smaller subheadings.

For example,

====This is just a minor subheading.====

creates:

This is just a minor subheading.
A Table of Contents is generated automatically from the headings. It will appear if there is more than few sections on the page. See Help:Magic Words for more information on Table of Contents.

Line Breaks
Paragraphs are identified in wikicode by the simple expedient of leaving a blank line between paragraphs. This has the side effect that two lines of text without a blank line between them will remain on the same line on-screen. Also,  can be used to force a line break (but not a paragraph break) at any time within a paragraph, though you shouldn't need to use this much.

Horizontal Lines
A horizontal lines can be created by adding four dashes in a row on a separate line.

This code in the edit window: creates this horizontal line:

(Equivalently, the XHTML code  also creates a horizontal line.)

Also, the largest two section headers automatically create a horizontal line immediately below the heading title.

Background
is an interpreted language that is currently used to write web pages. HTML is now considered deprecated by the W3C, and is strongly discouraged. is a revised version of HTML, designed to counter problems within the HTML standard.

Compatability and Future Proofing
Older browers will rarely have issues with XHTML, but the same cannot be said of any browser in regards to regular HTML; the flaws within the original HTML specifications left too much room for ambiguity and both can, and often have been, misinterpreted.

The primary reason behind the stated strong preference for wikimarkup over either HTML or XHTML is future proofing. As stated earlier, HTML is deprecated and discouraged. One can imagine that backwards compatability with aging and defunct standards may eventually be discarded in order to reduce the size and complexity of browsers.

At present, wikimarkup can be likened to "shorthand" of XHTML, but will presumably take advantage of the capabilities of when it becomes reasonable. Therefore, it is strongly advised that wherever possible, wikimarkup should be used instead of HTML or XHTML.

Non-exhaustive List of HTML and XHTML Tags
Some more useful HTML formatting codes are as follows:
 * Using  and   to put items in typewriter font. These tags are often synonymous, but not in every case. The   tag is actually intended to delineate program source code from other text.
 * Using  or   to strikethrough text.
 * Using  to underline text.
 * Using  to put text in small caps . Technically, this is using XHTML and.
 * Using  and   to make text Superscript and subscript respectively.
 * As mentioned previously,  generates a line break. Use blank lines wherever possible, try to use the   tag as a last resort.
 * As mentioned previously  will generate a horizontal line. Again, use   as a last resort.