Help:HTML in wikitext

This help page is a how-to guide.

It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcuts

The MediaWiki software, which drives Wikipedia, allows the use of a subset of HTML 5 elements, or tags and their attributes, for presentation formatting.^[1] But most HTML can be included by using equivalent wiki markup or templates; these are generally preferred within articles, as they are sometimes simpler for most editors and less intrusive in the editing window; but Wikipedia's Manual of Style recommends their use in certain cases. (See Help:Wikitext for wiki equivalents to HTML tags not otherwise discussed below.) And HTML is useful outside of articles, for example for formatting within templates. For help with Cascading Style Sheet use within Wikipedia see Help:Cascading Style Sheets.

Some tags look like HTML, but are actually MediaWiki parser and extension tags, and so are really wiki markup. HTML in pages can be checked for HTML5 compliance by using validation. Some elements and attributes are supported by MediaWiki and browsers, but have been deprecated by HTML5, and therefore should no longer be used.

Tutorials

This help page gives only an overview of allowed markup. For further assistance and detailed specifications:

HTML5 Introduction at developer.mozilla.org
HTML5 Introduction at w3schools.com

Attributes

HTML attributes provide additional information about an element and are always specified in the start tag. They are formatted as a name/value pair like name="value".

Global attributes apply to all tags. Attributes not listed here are not allowed by MediaWiki^[1]:

class: one or more classifications to which the element belongs. See Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes.
dir: text direction— "ltr" (left-to-right), "rtl" (right-to-left) or "auto".
id: unique identifier for the element.
lang: primary language for the contents of the element per BCP 47.
style: applies CSS styling to the contents of the element.
title: advisory information associated with the element.

HTML5 microdata attributes apply to all tags:^[2]

Any attribute beginning with data-
itemid
itemprop
itemref
itemscope
itemtype

Other tags such as <table> support specific attributes – these are listed in the appropriate section.

Markup	Renders as
This is <span style="color:red;">red</span> text.	This is red text.

The MediaWiki Sanitizer.php does some cleanup on attributes. A best practice is to use the proper syntax.

Discards attributes not on a whitelist for the given element.
Turns broken or invalid entities into plaintext.
Double-quotes all attribute values.
Attributes without values are given the name as value.
Double attributes are discarded.
Unsafe style attributes are discarded.
Prepends space if there are attributes.

Elements

These HTML elements are supported by the MediaWiki software. This section gives a brief overview of the HTML element, an example, relevant wikimarkup and templates.

Basic

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6

The <h1>...</h1> through <h6>...</h6> tags are headings for the sections with which they are associated. <h1> is used for the article title. Headings are styled through CSS and added to the page's table of contents.

Markup	Renders as
<h1>Heading 1</h1> <h2>Heading 2</h2> <h3>Heading 3</h3> <h4>Heading 4</h4> <h5>Heading 5</h5> <h6>Heading 6</h6>	Heading 1 Heading 2 Heading 3 Heading 4 Heading 5 Heading 6

Wikimarkup: surround the text with the appropriate number of equal signs. Headers formatted with wikimarkup add an [edit] link.

Markup	Renders as
= Heading 1 = == Heading 2 == === Heading 3 === ==== Heading 4 ==== ===== Heading 5 ===== ====== Heading 6 ======	Heading 1 Heading 2 Heading 3 Heading 4 Heading 5 Heading 6

Templates: {{fake heading}} for use in documentation

p

<p>...</p> tag places content into a separate paragraph.

Markup	Renders as
<p>HyperText Markup Language</p><p>HyperText Markup Language</p>	HyperText Markup Language HyperText Markup Language

Wikimarkup: Separate paragraphs by a single blank line.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText Markup Language HyperText Markup Language	HyperText Markup Language HyperText Markup Language

<p>...</p> is especially useful in lists, for list items with multiple paragraphs:

Markup

Renders as

* <p>This is a paragraph.</p><p>This is another paragraph in the same item.</p>
* This is a different item.

This is a paragraph.
This is another paragraph in the same item.
This is a different item.

Note that the closing tag </p> is not strictly necessary for MediaWiki installations that output HTML 5 (such as Wikipedia).

br

<br> inserts a line break. See H:BR for the other 4 versions that the MediaWiki software converts to <br /> in the HTML that browsers read.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText<br>Markup Language	HyperText Markup Language

Templates:

{{break}} adds multiple line breaks.
{{crlf2}} adds a true carriage return and line feed.
{{clear}} adds a break with styling to clear floating elements.
{{plainlist}} creates an unbulleted list.

hr

<hr> or <hr /> represents a paragraph-level thematic break and presents as a horizontal rule.

Markup	Renders as
<hr />

Wikimarkup: use ----

Markup	Renders as
----

Templates: {{hr}}

Comments

 formats the enclosed text as a hidden comment.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText<!--Markup Language-->	HyperText

Be careful with spacing around comments. Surrounding a comment with blank lines will result in a blank paragraph, perceived as an extra two blank lines:

Markup	Renders as
Content line 1 <!-- Comment --> Content line 2	Content line 1 Content line 2

Formatting

abbr

<abbr>...</abbr> creates a tooltip to define an abbreviation or acronym that is displayed on mouse-over.

Markup	Renders as
<abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr>	HTML

Templates: {{abbr}}

b

<b>...</b> formats text stylistically offset from other text (bold) without conveying extra importance.

Markup	Renders as
<b>HyperText Markup Language</b>	HyperText Markup Language

Wikimarkup: Use ''' to open and close bold text.

Markup	Renders as
'''HyperText Markup Language'''	HyperText Markup Language

bdi

<bdi>...</bdi> isolates the content from the surrounding text-direction settings.

Markup	Renders as
اليمين إلى اليسارleft to right	اليمين إلى اليسارleft to right
اليمين إلى اليسار<bdi>left to right</bdi>	اليمين إلى اليسارleft to right

Support: Firefox, Chrome

bdo

<bdo>...</bdo> specifies the text direction.

Attributes and values:

dir – Specifies the text direction.
- ltr
- rtl

Markup	Renders as
<bdo dir="rtl">HyperText Markup Language</bdo>	HyperText Markup Language

blockquote

<blockquote>...</blockquote> presents text in an offset block.

Markup	Renders as
<blockquote>HyperText Markup Language</blockquote>	HyperText Markup Language

Templates: {{quote}}; supports pre-formatted attribution and source parameters. For other specialized quotation templates, see Category:Quotation templates.

cite

<cite>...</cite> contains the title of a work. This is a new definition in HTML5— in the previous XML implementation <cite> was used to contain a citation or a reference to other sources. No formatting is applied when this tag is used.

Markup	Renders as
<cite>HyperText Markup Language</cite>	HyperText Markup Language

<cite>...</cite> is generally not used directly in Wikipedia articles, and is often misused; see Wikipedia:HTML 5#cite for replacement instructions.

code

<code>...</code> formats a section of computer code. Styled with CSS through mediawiki.skinning/elements.less as a black monospaced typeface with a grey background (#F8F9FA) and border (#EAECF0).

Markup	Renders as^[3]
use <code>this code</code>	use `this code`

Templates: {{code}} uses <syntaxhighlight>. See the "See also" section at the template page for additional code-markup templates.

See § samp and § kbd on this page for semantic markup of output and input, respectively.

data

<data>...</data> formats a machine-readable version of contents.

Markup	Renders as
<data value="978-0764502149">HTML for Dummies</data>	HTML for Dummies

Attributes: value

del

<del>...</del> formats deleted text.

Markup	Renders as
<del>HyperText Markup Language</del>	~~HyperText Markup Language~~

dfn

<dfn>...</dfn> is used for indicating the defining instance of a term.

Markup	Renders as
<dfn>Definition</dfn>	Definition

Templates: {{dfn}}

em

<em>...</em> represents a span of text with emphatic stress (i.e. semantic emphasis). In most browsers, it renders as italic.

Markup	Renders as
<em>HyperText Markup Language</em>	HyperText Markup Language

Templates: {{em}}

i

<i>...</i> represents a span of text offset from its surrounding content without conveying any extra emphasis or importance, and for which the conventional typographic presentation is italic text.

Markup	Renders as
<i>HyperText Markup Language</i>	HyperText Markup Language

Wikimarkup: Use '' to open and close italic text.

Markup	Renders as
''HyperText Markup Language''	HyperText Markup Language

ins

<ins>...</ins> indicates a range of text that has been added. Styled as underlined text. Used on talk pages to indicate refactored text; see WP:REDACT.

Markup	Renders as
<ins>HyperText Markup Language</ins>	HyperText Markup Language

kbd

<kbd>...</kbd> indicates user input such as keyboard input or voice commands (but no gray background as with the template {{kbd}}).

Markup	Renders as
Press <kbd>Enter</kbd>	Press `Enter`

Templates:

{{kbd}} applies monospace styling, and a light-grey background to distinguish from code (<code>) and output (<samp> or {{samp}}).
{{key press}} renders illustrated keys and keystrokes.

mark

<mark>...</mark> represents a run of text in one document marked or highlighted for reference purposes, due to its relevance in another context. Marked text is formatted with a yellow background by default.

Markup	Renders as
<mark>HyperText Markup Language</mark>	HyperText Markup Language
<mark style="background:lightblue;">HyperText Markup Language</mark>	HyperText Markup Language

Support: Not supported by Internet Explorer 8 and below.

pre

<pre>...</pre> element represents a block of preformatted text. In MediaWiki, <pre> is actually a parser tag and not HTML, but the function is the same. It also prevents the parsing of templates.

Markup	Renders as^[3]
<pre>HyperText Markup Language</pre>	HyperText Markup Language

HTML entities

<pre> parses HTML entities. If you want to escape this, replace & with &, or use <syntaxhighlight lang="text"> instead.

Markup	Renders as^[3]
<pre>&</pre>	&
<pre><</pre>	<
<pre>&amp;</pre>	&
<pre>&lt;</pre>	<

Templates:

{{pre}} wraps text that overflows the page.

q

<q>...</q> is used to mark a short quotation. There has been very little implementation of this element in Wikipedia yet.

Markup	Renders as
<q>HyperText Markup Language</q>	HyperText Markup Language

MOS:QUOTATIONS says Wikipedia should instead use "", {{quote}}, or <blockquote>.

rp, rt, ruby

<ruby>...</ruby> marks spans of phrasing content with ruby annotations.

<rt>...</rt> marks the ruby text component of a ruby annotation; the ruby text shows in a reduced size over top of the normal characters.
<rp>...</rp> is used to provide parentheses around a ruby text component of a ruby annotation, to be shown by user agents that don't support ruby annotations.

Browsers that do not support ruby characters will show the ruby text in normal size, enclosed in parentheses and after the normal content.

Markup	Renders as
<ruby> 東<rp>(</rp><rt>とう</rt><rp>)</rp> 京<rp>(</rp><rt>きょう</rt><rp>)</rp> </ruby>	東(とう) 京(きょう)

Templates:

{{ruby}}
{{ruby-ja}} for Japanese
{{Ruby-zh-p}} for Chinese pinyin
{{Ruby-zh-b}} for Chinese bopomofo

s

<s>...</s> is used to indicate content that is no longer accurate or relevant and that has been struck from the page. It is not appropriate when indicating document edits; to mark a span of text as having been removed from a document, use <del>.

Markup	Renders as
<s>HyperText Markup Language</s>	~~HyperText Markup Language~~

Templates: {{strikethrough}}

samp

<samp>...</samp> indicates sample output from a program or computing system. Examples include: output of a program, script, or Wikipedia template; status displays or audio announcements made by an app or device; file system directory listings and samples from them, such as paths and file names.

Markup	Renders as
sample output: <samp>HTML</samp>	sample output: `HTML`

Templates: {{samp}} applies monospace styling, and gives the text in dark grey to distinguish from code (<code>) and input (<kbd> or {{kbd}}).

small

<small>...</small> format small text.

Markup	Renders as
<small>HyperText Markup Language</small>	HyperText Markup Language

Templates:

{{small}} uses <span style="font-size:85%;">. {{small}} is recommended over <small> since <small>...</small> has a semantic meaning that is for fine print, whereas {{small}} is purely stylistic.

strong

<strong>...</strong> formats a span of text with strong importance or unusual emphasis; in most browsers it renders as boldface. This should generally not be used in Wikipedia articles, per WP:Neutral point of view policy. See MOS:BOLD on use of this element and other boldfacing. Most semantic emphasis, including in quoted material, should be rendered with the <em> element.

Markup	Renders as
<strong>HyperText Markup Language</strong>	HyperText Markup Language

Templates: {{strong}}

sub

<sub>...</sub> formats a span of text as a subscript.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText <sub>Markup Language</sub>	HyperText _{Markup Language}

Templates:

{{sub}} (_subscript text)
{{subsub}} (_{_{subscript subscript}} text)
{{ssub}} (_{subscript, small} text)
{{sup}} (^superscript text)
{{su}} (^superscript
_subscript text)
{{sup sub}} (text^sup
_sub)
{{e}} (1.23×10⁴)

sup

<sup>...</sup> formats a span of text as a superscript.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText <sup>Markup Language</sup>	HyperText ^{Markup Language}

Templates:

{{sub}} (_subscript text)
{{subsub}} (_{_{subscript subscript}} text)
{{ssub}} (_{subscript, small} text)
{{sup}} (^superscript text)
{{su}} (^superscript
_subscript text)
{{sup sub}} (text^sup
_sub)
{{e}} (1.23×10⁴)

time

<time>...</time> defines either a time (24 hour clock), or a date in the Gregorian calendar, optionally with a time and a time-zone offset.

Markup	Renders as
<time>10:00</time>	10:00

Attributes: datetime

Support: Not supported by Internet Explorer 8 and below.

u

<u>...</u> represents a span of text offset from its surrounding content without conveying any extra emphasis or importance, and for which the conventional typographic presentation is underlining; for example, a span of text in Chinese that is a proper name (a Chinese proper name mark), or span of text that is known to be misspelled.

<u> was presentational element of HTML that was originally used to underline text; this usage was deprecated in HTML4 in favor of the CSS style {text-decoration: underline}.^[4] In HTML5, the tag reappeared but its meaning was changed significantly: it now "represents a span of inline text which should be rendered in a way that indicates that it has a non-textual annotation".^[4] This facility is intended for example to provide a red wavy line underline to flag spelling errors at input time but which are not to be embedded in any stored file (unlike an emphasis mark, which would be).

Markup	Renders as
<u>HyperText Markup Language</u>	HyperText Markup Language

Templates: {{underline}} (which supplies the recommended CSS style)

var

<var>...</var> formats text in italics to indicate a variable in a mathematical expression or programming context, or placeholder text that the reader is meant to mentally replace with some other literal value.

Markup Renders as

*<var>E</var>=<var>m</var>c<sup>2</sup> (c is a constant not a variable)
*<code><nowiki>{{</nowiki><var>TemplateName</var>|<var>parameter</var>=<var>value</var><nowiki>}}</nowiki></code>
*If <var>A</var> then <var>B</var>

E=mc² (c is a constant not a variable)
{{TemplateName|parameter=value}}
If A then B

Templates:

{{var}}
{{varserif}} formatted in italic serif to differentiate characters

wbr

<wbr> is a word break opportunity; that is, it specifies where it would be OK to add a line-break where a word is too long, or it is perceived that the browser will break a line at the wrong place.

Markup	Renders as
Now is the time to become a power editor, by learning HyperText Markup Language	Now is the time to become a power editor, by learning HyperText Markup Language
Now is the time to become a power editor, by learning Hyper<wbr>Text Markup Language	Now is the time to become a power editor, by learning HyperText Markup Language

As the browser window is adjusted narrower, the second example wraps between Hyper and Text.

Lists

Do not leave blank lines between items in a list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the MediaWiki software to interpret each item as beginning a new list.

dl, dt, dd

<dl>...</dl>, <dt>...</dt> and <dd>...</dd> are used to create a description list (formerly definition list) with terms and descriptions. Terms are displayed in bold and descriptions are indented. Each term must include one or more descriptions.

Markup	Renders as
<dl> <dt>Term</dt> <dd>Definition 1</dd> <dd>Definition 2</dd> </dl>	Term Definition 1 Definition 2

Wikimarkup: <dt> is created using ; while automatically enclosed in <dl>...</dl>. <dd> is created using : for each value. For a single or first value the : can be placed on the same line after ; where subsequent values must be placed on separate lines.

Markup	Renders as
; Term : Definition 1 : Definition 2	Term Definition 1 Definition 2

Templates: {{defn}}

ol, ul, li

<ol>...</ol> represents an ordered list; <ul>...</ul> represents an unordered list; <li>...</li> represents a list item within either type of list.

Markup	Renders as
<ol> <li>Item 1</li> <li>Item 2</li> </ol>	Item 1 Item 2
<ul> <li>Item 1</li> <li>Item 2</li> </ul>	Item 1 Item 2

Wikimarkup: use * for items in an unordered list and # for ordered lists.

Markup	Renders as
# Item 1 # Item 2	Item 1 Item 2
* Item 1 * Item 2	Item 1 Item 2

Templates: for a variety of specialized uses, see Category:List formatting and function templates.

Containers

div

<div>...</div> is a generic container for flow content that displays as a block element.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText <div>Markup</div> Language	HyperText Markup Language

span

<span>...</span> is a container for flow content that displays as an inline element.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText <span>Markup</span> Language	HyperText Markup Language

Tables

table, td, tr

<table>...</table> defines a table.

<tr>...</tr> defines a table row.
<td>...</td> defines a data cell with contents that may include text, links, images, lists, forms, other tables, etc.

Markup

Renders as

<table border=1>
<tr>
<td>data</td>
<td>data</td>
</tr>
</table>

data

Attributes:

<table>:
Allowed but not recommended: border="" and border="1"

Allowed but obsolete: border (with a non-empty value different from "1"), align, bgcolor, cellpadding, cellspacing, frame, rules, summary, width^[5]
<td>: colspan, headers, rowspan
Allowed but obsolete: abbr, align, axis, bgcolor, scope, height, nowrap, valign, width^[5]

th

<th>...</th> defines a table header; styled as centered and bold.

Markup

Renders as

<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>Header</th>
<th>Header</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>data</td>
<td>data</td>
</tr>
</table>

Header	Header
data	data

Attributes:

<th>: colspan, headers, rowspan, scope
Allowed but obsolete: abbr, align, axis, bgcolor, height, nowrap, valign, width^[5]

caption

<caption>...</caption> adds a caption to a table.

Markup

Renders as

<table border=1>
<caption>Caption</caption>
<tr>
<td>data</td>
<td>data</td>
</tr>
</table>

Caption
data	data

Attributes:

<caption>:
Allowed but obsolete: align^[5]

thead, tfoot, tbody

<thead>, <tfoot> and <tbody> are not supported, but are automatically generated when the page is rendered.

Obsolete/deprecated elements

These elements are now obsolete and either deprecated or removed in HTML5, and although they are still supported by browsers,^[5] their use should be avoided on Wikipedia. These tags either have an alternate tag or a template that replaces their function with CSS; the tags are being replaced by editors on pages throughout Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:Linter for more details). See Wikipedia:HTML5 § Obsolete elements and attributes for more details on obsolete HTML parts and their replacements.

center

~~<center>...</center> (obsolete)~~ was used to center text elements.

Templates: {{center}} uses CSS.

font

~~<font>...</font> (obsolete)~~ was used to set the font size, font face and color of text.

Templates: {{font}} uses CSS.

rb

~~<rb>...</rb> (obsolete)~~ was used to mark base text in a ruby annotation.

For replacements, see: Help:HTML in wikitext#rp, rt, ruby

strike

~~<strike>...</strike> (obsolete)~~ formatted strike-through characters; use <s> or instead, depending on the context.

tt

~~<tt>...</tt> (obsolete)~~ formatted text in a fixed-width font. Use <code>, <kbd> or <samp> instead, depending on the context.

Templates: {{mono}} uses CSS.

Unsupported elements

These elements are not supported, but have equivalent wiki markup. Attempting to use any element not whitelisted by Sanitizer.php will result in the markup showing as plain text.

a

<a> is used to create links. Use the [[ ]] wikimarkup for internal/intrawiki links and interwiki links, and [ ] for external links.

input

<input> is used to create forms. The <inputbox> extension tag is used to create a text box with a button.

HTML Tidy

HTML Tidy is an outdated HTML4 library that is slated for removal. Tidy parses the MediaWiki output and cleans it up to increase the likelihood that valid HTML4 is rendered. For example, with Tidy enabled, <br>, </br>, <br/>, <br.> all rendered as <br />. Tidy is not enabled for MediaWiki interface pages. Tidy was never perfect and has been known to introduce errors.

Exceptions

In some pages in the MediaWiki namespace, typically the short messages like button labels, HTML is not parsed, and tags will be exposed.

User and sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages are interpreted as if inside a <pre> block. See Help:User style.

Validation

The MediaWiki software attempts to fix HTML errors, but it does not catch all of them. Where HTML is used, it is helpful to verify it with the W3C Markup Validation Service.

Parser and extension tags

Shortcuts

For a machine-generated list, see Special:Version#mw-version-parser-extensiontags. It may include tags not documented here.

Parser tags: <gallery>, <includeonly>, <noinclude>, <nowiki>, <onlyinclude>, <pre>

Extension tags: <categorytree>, <charinsert>, <chem> (alias <ce>), <graph>, <hiero>, <imagemap>, <indicator>, <inputbox>, <mapframe>, <maplink>, <math>, <math chem>, <poem>, <ref>, <references>, <score>, <section>, <syntaxhighlight> (alias <source>), <templatedata>, <templatestyles>, <timeline>

References

^ ^a ^b Allowable elements and attributes are defined in the Sanitizer.php module.
^ "The microdata model". HTML Living Standard.
^ ^a ^b ^c For the table cell a white background color was chosen here for a better display of the light gray background.
^ ^a ^b "<u>: The Unarticulated Annotation (Underline) element". mozilla.org. 1 August 2020. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "HTML5: A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML: Obsolete Features". W3C. 31 July 2014.

External links

HTML 4.01 specification: elements | attributes
HTML 5.2 specification: elements | attributes

[sanitizer-1] Allowable elements and attributes are defined in the Sanitizer.php module.

[html5microdata-2] "The microdata model". HTML Living Standard.

[white_bgcolor-3] For the table cell a white background color was chosen here for a better display of the light gray background.

[mozilla-4] "<u>: The Unarticulated Annotation (Underline) element". mozilla.org. 1 August 2020. Retrieved 9 October 2020.

[w3c_obsolete-5] "HTML5: A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML: Obsolete Features". W3C. 31 July 2014.

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