Basic Formatting Technique

Wikis use a markup language similar to the HTML used in web pages to control the 'look and feel' of articles. You can insert the more common markups into an article by clicking some of the shortcuts on the editing shortcut strip above the edit window.

If you know a particular markup, you can also type it directly into the edit window. For example to bold a word or phrase, type three apostrophes (''') immediately before the first word you want to bold and three apostrophes (''') immediately after the last word you want to bold. Your text will display like this. For italics use two apostrophes before and after the words to be formated instead of three.

There are currently two lists of wiki markup at the UA Wiki. One is broken into three sections which are classified by complexity and can be found in the User Contribution Guide. The second is an alphabetical listing of markups and techniques and can be found in the Help Table of Contents under the Markup Listing entry.

You can also refer to the MediaWiki Formatting Help page for further information.

Also, the Markup Example may be of use to demonstrate how a simple markup works.

For complete formatting and markup language information look at MediaWiki: Help:Formatting

Drag and Drop Editing

You can use standard Windows drag and drop techniques to move sections of text in the edit window.

Line Breaks & Whitespace

Wiki markup acts like HTML in regards to line breaks. Two carraige returns result in a new paragraph, but everything else is ignored. Single spaces are parsed, but mutliple spaces are reduced to a single space unless otherwise marked.

To force line breaks, use the <br> tag in the wiki text.

Escaping Markup

If you want to display actual markup in your page, use the <nowiki></nowiki> tags:

<nowiki>[[A Page Link]]</nowiki> displays: [[A Page Link]]

Headings

To display headings of various sizes, use equal signs as markup on either side of the text you want as a heading.

== A Large Print Heading (h1) ==

====== A Small Print Heading (h5) =====

Code Snippets

You can use the codebox markup [code][/code] or [codebox][/codebox] to insert code examples into articles.

You can also use [sql][/sql] for SQL statements:

Tables

Tables are a slightly more advanced markup than most wiki markups and may take a little more getting used to. For more information regarding tables, please see the dedicated help page.