wikidoc:How to edit a page
- See also Wikipedia:Introduction, Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Tutorial, Help:Editing, and Help:Starting a new page
Wikipedia is a wiki and this means anyone can easily edit any unprotected page and save those changes immediately to that page. After your first edit, you will be a Wikipedia editor!
Introduction
Editing most Wikipedia pages is not difficult. Simply click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of a Wikipedia page (or on a section-edit link). This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the original page. You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend, and when you see the difference between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page by pressing the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and press the "Save page" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to all Wikipedia users.
You can also click on the "Discussion" tab to see the corresponding talk page, which contains comments about the page from other Wikipedia users. Click on the "+" tab to add a new section, or edit the page in the same way as an article page.
You should also remember to sign your messages on talk pages and some special-purpose project pages, but you should not sign edits you make to regular articles. In page histories, the MediaWiki software keeps track of which user makes each change.
Minor edits
A check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, etc. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. The "minor edit" option is one of several options available only to registered users.
Major edits
All editors are encouraged to be bold, but there are several things that a user can do to ensure that major edits are performed smoothly. Before engaging in a major edit, a user should consider discussing proposed changes on the article discussion/talk page. During the edit, if doing so over an extended period of time, the {{inuse}} tag can reduce the likelihood of an edit conflict. Once the edit has been completed, the inclusion of an edit summary will assist in documenting the changes. These steps will all help to ensure that major edits are well received by the Wikipedia community.
A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is major (not minor), even if the edit is a single word.
There are no necessary terms to which you have to agree when doing major edits, but the recommendations above have become best practice. If you do it your own way, the likelihood of your edits being reedited may be higher.
Wiki markup
The wiki markup is the syntax system you can use to format a Wikipedia page; please see Help:Editing for details on it, and Help:Wikitext examples for a longer list of the possibilities of Wikitext.
Links and URLs
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
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London has public transport.
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London has [[public transport]]. |
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San Francisco also has public transportation.
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San Francisco also has [[public transport| public transportation]]. |
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San Francisco also has public transportation. Examples include buses, taxicabs, and streetcars.
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San Francisco also has [[public transport]]ation. Examples include [[bus]]es, [[taxicab]]s, and [[streetcar]]s. a [[micro]]<nowiki>second </nowiki> |
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See the Wikipedia:Manual of Style.
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See the [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]]. |
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Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Italics is a link to a section within another page. #Links and URLs is a link to another section on the current page. Italics is a piped link to a section within another page.
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[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Italics]] is a link to a section within another page. [[#Links and URLs]] is a link to another section on the current page. [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Italics|Italics]] is a piped link to a section within another page. |
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Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: kingdom. Automatically hide namespace: Village Pump. Or both: Manual of Style But not: [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Links|]]
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Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: [[kingdom (biology)|]]. Automatically hide namespace: [[Wikipedia:Village Pump|]]. Or both: [[Wikipedia: Manual of Style (headings)|]] But not: [[Wikipedia: Manual of Style#Links|]]
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National sarcasm society is a page that does not exist yet.
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[[National sarcasm society]] is a page that does not exist yet. |
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Wikipedia:How to edit a page is a link to this page.
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[[Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] is a link to this page. |
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The character tilde (~) is used when adding a comment to a Talk page. You should sign your comment by appending four tildes (~~~~) to the comment so as to add your user name plus date/time:
Adding three tildes (~~~) will add just your user name: and adding five tildes (~~~~~) gives the date/time alone:
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The character '''tilde''' (~) is used when adding a comment to a Talk page. You should sign your comment by appending four tildes (~~~~) to the comment so as to add your user name plus date/time: : ~~~~ Adding three tildes (~~~) will add just your user name: : ~~~ and adding five tildes (~~~~~) gives the date/time alone: : ~~~~~ |
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#REDIRECT [[United States]] #REDIRECT [[United States#History|United States History]] will redirect to the [[United States]] page, to the History section if it exists |
For example in the article on Plankton, which is available on a lot of other wikis, the interlanguage links would look like so:
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What links here and Related changes pages can be linked as: Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia:How to edit a page and Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:How to edit a page |
'''What links here''' and '''Related changes''' pages can be linked as: [[Special:Whatlinkshere/ Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] and [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/ Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] |
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A user's Contributions page can be linked as: Special:Contributions/UserName or Special:Contributions/192.0.2.0 |
A user's '''Contributions''' page can be linked as: [[Special:Contributions/UserName]] or [[Special:Contributions/192.0.2.0]] |
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[[Category:Character sets]] |
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[[:Category:Character sets]] |
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Three ways to link to external (non-wiki) sources:
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Three ways to link to external (non-wiki) sources: # Bare URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/ (bad style) # Unnamed link: [http://en.wikipedia.org/] (only used within article body for footnotes) # Named link: [http://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] |
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Linking to other wikis:
Linking to another language's wiktionary:
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Linking to other wikis: # [[Interwiki]] link: [[Wiktionary:Hello]] # Interwiki link without prefix: [[Wiktionary:Hello|]] # Named interwiki link: [[Wiktionary:Hello| Wiktionary definition of 'Hello']] Linking to another language's wiktionary: # [[Wiktionary:fr:bonjour]] # [[Wiktionary:fr:bonjour|bonjour]] # [[Wiktionary:fr:bonjour|]] |
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ISBN 012345678X ISBN 0-12-345678-X
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ISBN 012345678X ISBN 0-12-345678-X |
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Text mentioning RFC 4321 anywhere
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Text mentioning RFC 4321 anywhere |
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Date formats:
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Date formats: # [[July 20]], [[1969]] # [[20 July]] [[1969]] # [[1969]]-[[07-20]] # [[1969-07-20]] |
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Special as-of links like this year needing future maintenance |
Special [[WP:AO|as-of]] links like [[As of 2006|this year]] needing future maintenance |
Some uploaded sounds are listed at Wikipedia:Sound. |
[[media:Classical guitar scale.ogg|Sound]] |
Images
Only images that have been uploaded to Wikipedia can be used. To upload images, use the upload page. You can find the uploaded image on the image list.
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
| A picture:
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A picture: [[Image:wiki.png]] |
| With alternative text:
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With alternative text: [[Image:wiki.png|Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.]]
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Floating to the right side of the page using the frame attribute and a caption:
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Floating to the right side of the page using the ''frame'' attribute and a caption: [[Image:wiki.png|frame|Wikipedia Encyclopedia]]
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| Floating to the right side of the page using the thumb attribute and a caption:
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Floating to the right side of the page using the ''thumb'' attribute and a caption: [[Image:wiki.png|thumb|Wikipedia Encyclopedia]]
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| Floating to the right side of the page without a caption:
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Floating to the right side of the page ''without'' a caption: [[Image:wiki.png|right|Wikipedia Encyclopedia]]
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| A picture resized to 30 pixels...
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A picture resized to 30 pixels... [[Image:wiki.png|30 px]]
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| Linking directly to the description page of an image: | Linking directly to the description page of an image: [[:Image:wiki.png]]
(such as any of the ones above) also leads to the description page |
| Linking directly to an image without displaying it: | Linking directly to an image without displaying it: [[:media:wiki.png|Image of the jigsaw globe logo]]
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| Using the div tag to separate images from text (note that this may allow images to cover text): | Example: <div style="display:inline; width:220px; float:right;"> Place images here </div> |
| Using wiki markup to make a table in which to place a vertical column of images (this helps edit links match headers, especially in Firefox browsers): | Example: {| align=right
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Place images here
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See the Wikipedia's image use policy as a guideline used on Wikipedia.
For further help on images, including some more versatile abilities, see the topic on Extended image syntax.
Headings
For a top-level heading, put it on a separate line surrounded by '=='. For example:
==Introduction==
Subheadings use '===', '====', and so on.
Character formatting
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
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Italicized text |
''Italicized text'' '''Bold text''' '''''Italicized & Bold text''''' |
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A typewriter font for monospace text
or for computer code:
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A typewriter font for <tt>monospace text</tt> or for computer code: <code>int main()</code> |
Create codeblocks |
Use <code><pre> Block of Code </pre></code> around the block of code. * The <pre> tags within the codeblock will create formatting issues - to solve, display the tags literally with <pre> and </pre> |
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You can use small text for captions. |
You can use <small>small text</small> for captions. |
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Better stay away from big text, unless it's within small text. |
Better stay away from <big>big text</big>, unless <small> it's <big>within</big> small</small> text. |
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You can You can also mark
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You can <s>strike out deleted material</s> and <u>underline new material</u>. You can also mark <del>deleted material</del> and <ins>inserted material</ins> using logical markup. For backwards compatibility better combine this potentially ignored new <del>logical</del> with the old <s><del>physical</del></s> markup. |
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Suppressing interpretation of markup:
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<nowiki>Link → (''to'')
the [[Wikipedia FAQ]]</nowiki>
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Commenting page source:
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<!-- comment here --> |
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Diacritical marks:
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À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ |
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Punctuation:
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¿ ¡ § ¶ † ‡ • – — ‹ › « » ‘ ’ “ ” |
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Commercial symbols:
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™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤ |
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Subscripts:
Superscripts:
ε0 = 8.85 × 10−12 C² / J m. |
x<sub>1</sub> x<sub>2</sub> x<sub>3</sub> or <br/> x₀ x₁ x₂ x₃ x₄ <br/> x₅ x₆ x₇ x₈ x₉ x<sup>1</sup> x<sup>2</sup> x<sup>3</sup> or <br/> x⁰ x¹ x² x³ x⁴ <br/> x⁵ x⁶ x⁷ x⁸ x⁹ ε<sub>0</sub> = 8.85 × 10<sup>−12</sup> C² / J m. 1 [[hectare]] = [[1 E4 m²]] |
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Greek characters:
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α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω |
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Mathematical characters:
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∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ℵ ø ∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇐ ⇓ ⇑ ⇔ → ↓ ↑ ← ↔ |
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<math>\,\! \sin x + \ln y</math> <math>\mathbf{x} = 0</math> Ordinary text should use wiki markup for emphasis, and should not use |
<math>\,\! \sin x + \ln y</math>
sin''x'' + ln''y''
<math>\mathbf{x} = 0</math>
'''x''' = 0
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Spacing in simple math formulae:
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Obviously, ''x''² ≥ 0 is true when ''x'' is a real number. |
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Complicated formulae:
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: <math>\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{x^n}{n!}</math>
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(see also: Chess symbols in Unicode)
No or limited formatting—showing exactly what is being typed
A few different kinds of formatting will tell the Wiki to display things as you typed them—what you see, is what you get!
| What it looks like | What you type | |
|---|---|---|
| <nowiki> tags |
The nowiki tag ignores [[Wiki]] ''markup''. It reformats text by removing newlines and multiple spaces. It still interprets special characters: → |
<nowiki> The nowiki tag ignores [[Wiki]] ''markup''. It reformats text by removing newlines and multiple spaces. It still interprets special characters: → </nowiki> |
| <pre> tags |
The pre tag ignores [[Wiki]] ''markup''. It also doesn't reformat text. It still interprets special characters: → |
<pre> The pre tag ignores [[Wiki]] ''markup''. It also doesn't reformat text. It still interprets special characters: → </pre> |
| Leading spaces |
Leading spaces are another way to preserve formatting. However, it will make the whole page fail to render properly in some browsers, such as IE7, thus making the page unreadable.
Putting a space at the beginning of each line stops the text from being reformatted. It still interprets Wiki markup and special characters: → |
Leading spaces are another way to preserve formatting. Putting a space at the beginning of each line stops the text from being reformatted. It still interprets [[Wiki]] ''markup'' and special characters: → |
Invisible text (comments)
It's uncommon, but on occasion acceptable, to add a hidden comment within the text of an article. The format is this:
<!--- This is an example of text that won't normally be visible except in "edit" mode. --->
Table of contents
At the current status of the wiki markup language, having at least four headers on a page triggers the table of contents (TOC) to appear in front of the first header (or after introductory sections). Putting __TOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first header). Putting __NOTOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to disappear. See also compact TOC for alphabet and year headings.
Tables
There are two ways to build tables:
- in special Wiki-markup (see Help:Table)
- with the usual HTML elements: <table>, <tr>, <td> or <th>.
For the latter, and a discussion on when tables are appropriate, see Wikipedia:When to use tables.
Variables
(See also Help:Variable)
| Code | Effect |
|---|---|
| {{CURRENTWEEK}} | 52 |
| {{CURRENTDOW}} | 4 |
| {{CURRENTMONTH}} | 12 |
| {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} | December |
| {{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}} | December |
| {{CURRENTDAY}} | 26 |
| {{CURRENTDAYNAME}} | Thursday |
| {{CURRENTYEAR}} | 2024 |
| {{CURRENTTIME}} | 04:23 |
| {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} | 140,997 |
| {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} | 9,541 |
| {{PAGENAME}} | How to edit a page |
| {{NAMESPACE}} | wikidoc |
| {{REVISIONID}} | 571849 |
| {{localurl:pagename}} | /index.php/Pagename |
| {{localurl:Wikipedia:Sandbox|action=edit}} | /index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sandbox&action=edit |
| {{fullurl:pagename}} | https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Pagename |
| {{fullurl:pagename|query_string}} | https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php?title=Pagename&query_string |
| {{SERVER}} | https://www.wikidoc.org |
| {{ns:1}} | Talk |
| {{ns:2}} | User |
| {{ns:3}} | User talk |
| {{ns:4}} | wikidoc |
| {{ns:5}} | wikidoc talk |
| {{ns:6}} | File |
| {{ns:7}} | File talk |
| {{ns:8}} | MediaWiki |
| {{ns:9}} | MediaWiki talk |
| {{ns:10}} | Template |
| {{ns:11}} | Template talk |
| {{ns:12}} | Help |
| {{ns:13}} | Help talk |
| {{ns:14}} | Category |
| {{ns:15}} | Category talk |
| {{SITENAME}} | wikidoc |
NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect, in other words number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages.
CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN is the genitive (possessive) grammatical form of the month name, as used in some languages; CURRENTMONTHNAME is the nominative (subject) form, as usually seen in English.
In languages where it makes a difference, you can use constructs like {{grammar:case|word}} to convert a word from the nominative case to some other case. For example, {{grammar:genitive|{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}}} means the same as {{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}.
Templates
The MediaWiki software used by Wikipedia has support for templates. This means standardized text chunks (such as boilerplate text) can be inserted into articles. For example, typing {{stub}} will appear as "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." when the page is saved. See Wikipedia:Template messages for the complete list. Other commonly used templates are: {{disambig}} for disambiguation pages and {{sectstub}} like an article stub but for a section. There are many subject-specific stubs for example: {{Geo-stub}}, {{Hist-stub}}, and {{Linux-stub}}. For a complete list of stubs see Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types.
More information on editing wiki pages
You may also want to learn about:
- How to start a page
- Informal tips on contributing to Wikipedia
- Editing tasks in general at the Wikipedia:Editing FAQ
- Wikipedia:Cheatsheet
- Rename pages boldly, at Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page
- Preferred layout of your article, at Guide to layout
- Style conventions in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style
- An article with annotations pointing out common Wikipedia style and layout issues, at Wikipedia:Annotated article
- General policies in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines
- Wikipedia:Naming conventions for how to name articles themselves
- Help on editing very large articles
- If you are making an article about something that belongs to a group of objects (a city, an astronomical object, a Chinese character...) check if there is a WikiProject on the group and try to follow its directions explicitly.
- Wikipedia:Namespace
af:Wikipedia:Redigeer am:Help:Editing ang:Wikipedia:How to edit a page ar:مساعدة:تحرير az:Vikipediya:Məqalələrin redaktə qaydaları be:Вікіпэдыя:Як рэдагаваць існуючы артыкул bg:Уикипедия:Как се редактират страници bs:Wikipedia:Kako izmijeniti stranicu br:Skoazell:Penaos kemmañ ur bajenn ca:Ajuda:Com s'edita una pàgina cs:Nápověda:Jak editovat stránku de:Hilfe:Seite bearbeiten el:Βοήθεια:Πώς να επεξεργαστείτε μια σελίδα eo:Helpo:Kiel redakti paĝon eu:Laguntza:Artikuluak nola aldatzen diren fa:ویکیپدیا:راهنمای ویرایش صفحات fi:Ohje:Kuinka sivuja muokataan ga:Vicipéid:Conas alt a chur in eagar he:עזרה:עריכת דף hi:विकिपीडिया:लेख को कैसे बदलें hu:Wikipédia:Hogyan szerkessz lapokat? ia:Wikipedia:Como formatar texto id:Wikipedia:Menyunting sebuah halaman it:Aiuto:Modifica lb:Wikipedia:Regelen lt:Pagalba:Kaip redaguoti puslapį ms:Wikipedia:Menyunting nl:Help:Uitleg no:Hjelp:Hvordan man redigerer en side nn:Hjelp:Endring simple:Help:How to edit sk:Pomoc:Prehľad editácie stránok sl:Wikipedija:Urejanje strani sr:Помоћ:Уређивање su:Wikipedia:Cara ngédit kaca sv:Wikipedia:Hur man redigerar en sida th:วิกิพีเดีย:การแก้ไขหน้า ur:صفحہ کس طرح ترميم کريں yi:הילף:רעדאקטירן zh-min-nan:Help:Pian-chi̍p zh-yue:Wikipedia:點樣編輯一頁