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Simple editing is one of the major benefits of using a wiki. Users can edit pages without knowing HTML, and still use many formatting features of HTML. Most wikis define a set of formatting rules to convert plain text into HTML. Some wikis (like this one) also allow some HTML "tags", like <b>, <i>, and <pre> within a page. (Some wikis use raw HTML instead of special formatting rules.)

Tips | Hints

The following text is an overview of the UseModWiki text formatting rules. For examples without all the explanatory text, see the TextFormattingExamples. To try these rules for yourself, please feel free to edit the SandBox page. To see how any page is formatted, just follow the link "Edit text of this page" at the bottom of the page.

Basic Text Formatting:

Entering text on a wiki can be done simply. Follow these guidelines:

• Carriage returns (ie pressing the Enter key) are significant in formatting a wiki page
• Multiple spaces and tabs are ignored
• use '' (two single-quotes) for italics, ''' (three single-quotes) for bold, and ''''' (five single-quotes) for bold-italics. Alternatively, use tags <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>
• Use tag <tt>for monospace text</tt>
• The first character entered on a line often controls the formatting of the text on that line (shades of Fortran), in brief (see below and sub pages for details):
  • " " space causes text to appear in a monospaced font where spaces are significant
  • ":" colon causes text to be indented
  • "=" equals - followed by a space - creates a heading, a trailing "=" - preceded by a space - is required. You can use multiple "=" to make smaller headings. If you have 4 or more heading sections within a page, a table of contents is automatically created
  • "*" asterisk creates a bulleted list
  • "#" hash creates a numbered list
  • ";" semicolon creates a definition list, a ":" colon is required subsequently on the same line
  • "----" four hyphens creates a horizontal line
  • "||" vertical bar creates a table (requires a table patch for versions prior to 1.0, eg WikiPatches/TableSyntaxCommonMarkup).

Repetition of the first character on the line generally increases the indentation or emphasis

• Leave a single blank line between paragraphs.
• Suppress wiki formatting and linking through escaped WikiWiki text -- <nowiki>WikiWiki</nowiki>
• Insert an image using a full URL, eg http://usemod.com/wiki.gif

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Creating Templates or Reusable Navigation

If you would like to create a navigation area for each of your pages so there is an easy way to return to the main page, follow these steps.

• create a new page but but instead of using [[link]] use {{link}}. This will create the new page as a reusable template.
• with the reusable information, or navigation, formatted how you would like it to display on each page save the template
• find a page you want the template to display on and insert {{link}} into the area you want the navigation or reusable information to appear.

Make all your pages (keep the page names short), then on the main page, click on the Discussion Tab, then Edit, type in one word to be used as the navigation link like this example with these brackets: {{example}} no spaces.

Now click on that page and put in the names of your pages with brackets before and after the page names. Example : [[ name of page]] a space or two [[name of another page]] and so on.

Adding an Excel Document or Chart

In Excel you will need to select the area or contents you want to add to your wiki page. Click on File, Print, choose Adobe PDF as your printer. On this dialog box under the Print What you need to choose Selection. Click Ok. It will then create the pdf file. Now you need to open Adobe Photoshop, File open to this new pdf file. There will be gray checkers on the pdf, don't worry about that, do a File Save As, Choose the Format of jpg. Click Save, a Save Options box will appear, choose 5 under Image Options, click OK. This is the file you will need to upload into your Wiki. Remember...you must be logged in to upload images!

• If you have a large amount of rows and colums you must break it into several areas. If you have a chart you will need to save the chart then open in Adobe and save a jpg. If the image is too large you can resize under Image, Resize in Adobe. A good size is 600 x 400 pixels.

Page, URL, and InterWiki Links:

Wiki Pages

You can link to a page by removing the spaces between two or more words, and starting each word with a capital letter. For instance, WikiName and TextFormattingExamples are samples of page links.

People abhorring PascalCase can use a free link: surround text with two pairs of square brackets like Sample Free Link. This allows all-downcase or atomic capitalized names as well as strange names including punctuation.

Nonexistent pages, like SampleUndefinedPage, will be displayed with a question mark link. The question mark link indicates the page doesn't exist yet--follow the link to create and edit the page. [The sample page used here is a special example page--you can't define it.]

URLs

Plain URL link: http://172.16.25.217:16080/wiki/index.php/Sandbox -- http://172.16.25.217:16080/wiki/index.php/Sandbox

Named URL link: [1] -- [http://172.16.25.217:16080/wiki/index.php/Sandbox|Sandbox]

You can create an image which links to a url using [url image_url] e.g. http://www.dickinson.edu/logo/redneg150.gif

On-Site URLS

To make on-site links you must respecify the protocol e.g.:

• [http:/wiki.gif like this local link] -- [http:/wiki.gif like this local link]
• [http:../wiki.gif this relative link] -- [http:../wiki.gif this relative link]
• [http:#anchor this anchor on the current page does not seem to work] -- [http:#anchor this anchor on the current page does not seem to work]

Full relative urls do not seem to work.

InterWiki

InterWiki link: Itwiki:InterWiki -- Itwiki:InterWiki

You can separate links from adjacent text with spaces or the special "" (two double-quotes) delimiter. The "" delimiter is not displayed - it is useful for cases like plural forms of page links. In nearly all cases, trailing punctuation is ignored, so you can safely make links like http://www.cnn.com/, without the trailing comma being part of the link. You can also use FreeLinks.

Lists:

Simple lists:

* Text for a bulleted list item.
** Text for second-level list.
*** Text for third level, etc.

...which looks like:

• Text for a bulleted list item.
  • Text for second-level list.
    • Text for third level, etc.

Numbered lists:

# Text for a numbered list item.
## Text for second-level list.
### Text for third level, etc.
## Another Text for the second level.

...which looks like:

1. Text for a numbered list item.
   1. Text for second-level list.
      1. Text for third level, etc.
   2. Another Text for the second level.

Indented Text:

: Text to be indented (quote-block)
:: Text indented more
::: Text indented to third level

...which looks like:

Text to be indented (quote-block)

Text indented more

Text indented to third level

Definition Text:

Term with indented definition: [without a blank line between term and definition]

;Term:Definition (indented)
;;Term (indented):Definition (indented two levels)
;;;Term (indented twice):Definition (indented to third level)

...which looks like:

Term

Definition (indented)

Term (indented)

Definition (indented two levels)

Term (indented twice)

Definition (indented to third level)

Images, Audio and Video Files

Just provide the URL, and the image will be inserted inline.

http://www.dickinson.edu/logo/redneg150.gif

These extensions are recognized: gif, jpg, png, bmp, jpeg

If you have a choice, results are usually best with png for computer generated images, and JPEG for photographic images.

If you have logged in, you can upload images, audio files, or video files. Images must be .jgp files, audio files must be .ogg files, and videos must be .mov files. The link that must be copied into the page to access the file must look like this depending on file type. [[Image:file.jpg]] or [[Image:file.jpg|alt text]] or [[Media:file.ogg]] for sounds and [[Media:file.mov]] for video.

Preformatted Text

Individual lines can be displayed as preformatted (fixed-width or "typewriter"-font) text by placing one or more spaces at the start of the line. Other wiki formatting (like links) will be applied to this kind of preformatted text.

Additionally, multi-line sections can be marked as pre-formatted text using lines starting with <pre> (to start pre-formatted text), and </pre> (to end preformatted text). The <pre> and </pre> tags are not displayed. Wiki links and other formatting is not done within a preformatted section. (If you want wiki formatting, use spaces at the start of the line instead of the <pre> and </pre> tags.)

For instance:

Pre-formatted section here.  No other link =link=
  or format processing


is done on pre-formatted sections.

Miscellaneous rules:

• To quote text without applying the wiki formatting rules, enclose it within a <nowiki> ... </nowiki> section. Within a nowiki section, only HTML-quoting of special characters (<>&) will occur - no other formatting rules will be applied.
• A line which ends in a backslash character (\) will be joined with the next line before most formatting rules are applied. This can be useful for breaking up long sections of text in line-sensitive sections (like lists or indented text).
• If raw-HTML sections are enabled (they are disabled by default), you can enter raw HTML code within an <html> ... </html> section. Note that no quoting is done, so you will need to use sequences like &lt; if you want to display a < character.
• Most of the formatting rules are order-independent. On rare occasions, the order of processing may be important. The rules are processed in the following order: raw HTML sections, HTML quoting, nowiki tags, backslash line joining, preformatted sections, paragraphs, lists and indented text, horizontal lines, italic/bold text, URLs, and finally ordinary WikiName links. [No longer fully accurate for 0.88, needs updating.]

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