Cheat sheet for MediaWiki

Basics editing

Wikis use symbols such as asterisks, single-quotes, square-brackets and braces to represent formatting elements like making words into links to other sites or articles, or creating tables for layout and dividing the text into headings. This kind of text markup used in the MediaWiki (Wikipedia) project is called wikitext.

Below is a table of the most commonly used wikitext formatting, the middle column is what you type into the article in "edit mode" (after clicking the edit link at the top of the page), and the right-hand column shows what the result would be when viewing the article normally.

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 this wiki) Internal link (to a category) Interwiki Link (to partner wiki)	[[name of page]] [[name of page|display text]] [[:Category:name of category]] [[w:name of article]] [[wiki:name of article]] [[wiki:name of article|display text]]	name of page display text Category:name of category w:name of article wiki:name of article display text Note: red links mean the page doesn't exist yet
External link (to other websites)	[http://www.example.com] [http://www.example.com display text] http://www.example.com [mailto:[email protected] Jane's email]	[1] display text http://www.example.com Janes's email
Redirect	#redirect [[Target page]]	1. redirect Target page
Signature	~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~	J.Doe J.Doe 16:37, 19 May 2025 16:37, 19 May 2025
Escape wiki markup	with ''markup'' <nowiki>without ''markup''</nowiki>	with markup without ''markup''
Syntax Highlight with line numbering	<syntaxhighlight lang="bash" line> #!/bin/bash # my bash script </syntaxhighlight>	#!/bin/bash # my bash script
Horizontal rule	Text Before ---- Text After	Text Before Text After
Applies only at the beginning of the line
Headings of different sizes	== level 1 == === level 2 === ==== level 3 ==== ===== level 4 ===== Tip: put __NOTOC__ in an article to remove its table-of-contents	Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
Outline Numbered Headings	# one # two ## two point one # three	1. one 2. two 2.1 two point one 3. three
Bullet list	* one * two ** two point one * three	one two two point one three
Definition list	;Definition :item 1 :item 2	Definition item 1 item 2
Thumbnail image	[[File:Example.jpg|thumb|Caption text]]	Caption text

New lines

To create new lines between two paragraphs you will need to insert two blank lines or use <br /> . If you put a space in the beginning of the paragraph it will be treated as <pre> in HTML.

Trasclusion

You can insert on page into another. This is done if the pages are too long and you want to break them up. You can insert a second written page into the first one by
{{:History of sock hangers}}

Comments

Comments is text you don't want to to show but need it for information. Comments can be added to your MediaWiki by <!-- insert comment here -->.

You can also use <noinclude> Your comments </noinclude> for your comments.