How do you learn to format Wiki pages?
Generally, it is important to use as little markup as possible:
These are the most important formatting rules:
*bold*, /italic/, _underline_ → bold, italic, underline (the pattern matching is pretty restrictive, to prevent mismatches).%%*escaped*%% → *escaped* (instead of bold, by ignoring markup)##*escaped and monospaced*## → *escaped and monospaced* (instead of bold and variable width)*bold*, /italic/, _underline_) does not work://italic// or ''italic'' → italic**bold** or '''bold''' → bold__underline__ → underline`foo' → ‘foo’.----) on a separate line. Horizontal lines are used for the category section of pages, see WikiOrganization.--) surrounded by spaces.-- → – ---) surrounded by spaces.--- → —The official documentation is here:
The basic punctuation-based markup (see above) is preferable in all cases where it works. Alternative markup works in some additional contexts.
The following markup tags have special effects on this wiki. Use them like HTML tags.
<code>foo<nowiki><nowiki>[[No Link]]</nowiki> → [[No Link]]<pre><pre> tags must be alone on a line, to work. Example: to produce a line with foo, use this: <pre>
foo
</pre>The following standard HTML tags can be used on the wiki. Use them like HTML tags.
<u><u>foo bar (toto)</u> → foo bar (toto)<i><i>foo bar (toto)</i> → foo bar (toto)<b><b>foo bar (toto)</b> → foo bar (toto)<tt><tt>foo bar (toto)</tt> → foo bar (toto)<em><em>foo bar (toto)</em> → foo bar (toto)<strong><strong>foo bar (toto)</strong> → foo bar (toto)!NoLink → NoLink‘Manual’ – see EmacsManual.The reflexive intermap-link EmacsWiki has some of the following actions:
A more complete list can be found at http://www.oddmuse.org/cgi-bin/oddmuse/Action_List
Lists and indented paragraphs start with a special character followed by at least one space character. For example, a bulleted list item starts with ‘* ’, not with just ‘*’.
‘*’).‘**’)‘***’), and so on#’).##’);’) and a space (see above), followed by any amount of text, and the description starts with a colon (’:’). Your syntax should look like this: ; Term: Description.
For tabular information that doesn’t fit in lists or definition lists, use tables.
For example, this table has two columns, with the second row having an empty first column, and the third and final column spanning all the rows.
||First row||||Second column|| || ||Not empty|| ||||Span the columns||
Becomes:
| First row | Second column | |
| Not empty | ||
| Span the columns | ||
Official documentation is at Oddmuse:Table Markup Extension.
: ’) – more colons mean more indention.Conversation should be separated with [new] on a line by itself (starting in column 1). Currently, everything below each [new] is visually separated by having an alternate background color.
Alternate contributions (alternate [new]’s) are shaded, like this:
Someone’s contribution…
Someone else’s contribution.
Another contribution.
Yet another.
Putting [new::] will insert your UserName, and adds a timestamp to your contribution when you save the page. The timestamp appears when you move the mouse over the contribution. See also UsingPortraits.
<rant>
Please refrain from altering the above example’s wiki markup in an attempt to “clean it up”; usually this leaves it looking like this:
[new:SamuelBronson:2009-04-29 17:27 UTC]
<nowiki>, <code>, <pre>, {{...}}, etc. do not prevent it’s being expanded; you must actually prevent those characters from all appearing next to one another in the source of the page in order to prevent their being expanded. (This is arguably a bug.) Also, we must use <tt> to get fixed-width formatting because otherwised the <nowiki> tags used to break up the string show up:
[<nowiki>new::</nowiki>]
</rant>
A contribution after a [new] ends at either the next [new], the next heading (see below), or the next horizontal line (see above).
Use headings, horizontal lines or even new pages to separate threads of discussions, but use [new] to separate entries in the thread.
;;;) are formatted as code. No other rules are applied.{{{ and }}} are formatted as code.<code>: Code (usually monospaced, plus escaping of wiki processing): <code>foo</code> → foo (see WikiTags above)<pre>: Preformatted (usually monospaced, for paragraphs, plus whitespace is preserved, plus escaping of wiki processing). <pre> tags must be alone on a line, to work. (see WikiTags above)Headings are enclosed in equals signs (=) on a line of their own. You can use up to six equals signs to produce headers of level one to six. Level one is the most important one, and should not be used because the page title already uses a level one heading. This is why level one headings are automatically translated to level two headings.
Example:
== Heading 2 == === Heading 3 ===
Using two or three equals signs is recommended (== like this ==). Nothing beyond a level 4 heading is supported by the CSS stylesheet. After level 4, they are not displayed differently. Overuse of headings is poor style, as short Wiki pages are preferred to long ones. Consider splitting the page into two or more pages.
To put an image on a page, insert the URL with an image suffix.
Example:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs_logo.pngResult:

Alternatively, put image: and a page name inside double square brackets to insert inline images. The images must exist on the Wiki, or be uploaded to a page on the Wiki. See UploadingImages.
Example:
[[image:AngryFruitSaladTwo_Screenshot]]Result:
Discussions in the EmacsChannel can be copied directly to the Wiki.
Example:
<hybrid> emacs has a text adventure game in it <PyroMithrandir> emacs IS a text adventure game
Result:
A page on the wiki can “include” other pages. This is especially helpful for marking certain pages as out-of-date, requiring refactoring, candidates for deletion, or wiki projects.
<include "ExamplePage">
There is more to it, however. See Oddmuse:Transclusion.
The resulting HTML doesn’t tell you that ExamplePage has been transcluded, but if you’re on ExamplePage, clicking on the header will search for it. It’s up to the users to use a decent prefix to identify pages that are to be transcluded and to mention the page name this piece of text is from.
To change the name of a page without losing all of the archived links to the original name, create a new page with the original content and new name, and redirect the old name, by replacing the entire page with: #REDIRECT FooBar”, where “FooBar” is the new, target Wiki page.
More details at PageRedirection
For questions, problems, and comments see TextFormattingDiscussion.
For discussions on formatting style see StyleGuide.
See also HowToEdit.