Help:Editing Wikisource

Help:Editing Wikisource

One of a series of quick guides: General introduction - Reading - Editing - Adding new texts - Adding images - Other help

The most basic wiki feature is the 'edit' tab. With a few exceptions, you can edit every page on Wikisource. The Sandbox exists solely for tests, so feel free to use it to experiment. By the nature of Wikisource, original texts should not be changed, except for correcting errors. However, you are welcome to add new primary source texts or complete current ones.

Basic editing

When you click edit at the top of a page, you'll find yourself in the 'edit view'. The box contains the text and code of the page; make any changes you think improve the page. Below the edit box, you'll find the insert box. Click on a symbol inside this box to automatically insert it into the edit box where you last placed your cursor.

Once you're done, please write a brief summary of your changes in the edit summary box. The summary can be very descriptive or very terse, as you see fit; for example, other editors will understand that the edit summary "typo" means you made a minor spelling or punctuation correction. Accurate edit summaries are considered good etiquette.

If it's a very minor change, you can mark it as minor by checking the appropriate box below the edit summary. This feature is only available to registered users. It's possible to hide minor edits in the recent changes list. Note that marking an obviously major edit as minor is widely considered bad behaviour. If you accidentally mark a major edit as minor, make a trivial edit to the page (like changing one space) and write "the previous edit was not minor" or some such in the edit summary.

A very useful feature to use before saving is the Show preview button. This will show you the page exactly as it will appear after you save, so it's a good way to proofread or make sure everything is working correctly. The Show changes button will provide a side-by-side comparison of revisions with highlighted differences.

Once you're done, click the Save page to save your edits. The new version of the page will be visible immediately.

Wiki markup

Wikisource uses a special syntax called Wikitext or Wiki markup to format and link text. Wiki markup is especially designed to be easy to use.

Basic formatting

• Paragraphs are separated using two empty lines.
• Font emphasis:
  • italic text: ''italic text'' (double apostrophes).
  • bold text: '''bold text''' (triple apostrophes).
  • bold italic text: '''''bold italic text''''' (quintuple apostrophes).
• Font size can be adjusted with a set of size templates:
  • small, very small, and tiny text using {{smaller|small}}, {{x-smaller|very small}}, and {{xx-smaller|tiny}}.
  • larger, even larger, large, and huge text using {{larger|larger}}, {{x-larger|even larger}}, {{xx-larger|large}}, and {{xxx-larger|huge}}.
• Small Caps (lowercase characters as smaller capitals): {{small-caps|Small Caps}}.

Links

It is possible to create links to a page on Wikisource, on another wiki, or on the Internet. See also: Style Guide: links

• Wikilinks: [[The Tragedy of Julius Caesar]] displays an internal link to the Wikisource page The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by using double square brackets. You can also create a 'piped link', which displays text that differs from the target: [[The Tragedy of Julius Caesar|Julius Caesar]] displays as Julius Caesar.
• Author links: a link to an author uses a prefix for that Wikisource namespace, [[Author:William Shakespeare|]] uses the 'pipe trick' to display William Shakespeare without the prefix.
• Other language links: to link an existing wikisource page in another language requires using the sites prefix, [[fr:Jules César (Shakespeare)]] will show a link to this french translation by displaying "Français" in the sidebar. To link a work within the text use a colon before and after the prefix and a pipe [[:fr:Jules César (Shakespeare)|Jules César]] to display Jules César. Common prefixes include fr: (French) de: (German) and la: (Latin). Other prefixes can be found in the url (e.g. http://es.wikisource...) A link back to this site would be en:
• For advanced help concerning interwiki, interlanguage (and interwiki-interlanguage) links, see interwiki linking on the Meta-Wiki.
• External links: [http://example.org] Link to a page on the Internet by surrounding the URL with single square brackets. Doing so will create a bracketed number resembling [1]. You can link using text by adding a space after the URL followed by the desired text: [http://example.org click here] produces click here. Linking to the source of a text on the talk page, or in the notes section, is uncontroversial, but other external links may be discouraged. (Caveat on accessibility)

Categories

• [[Category:Category name]] (Add the current page to a category if you know which category it belongs to.) If you want to create a link to a category, use the following format [[:Category:Category name]]. Note that there is a colon (:) before the word "category."
• For advanced Category help, see Help:Category on the Meta-Wiki.

Headings

Headings (Such as "Headings" above) are sometimes used to divide a page into sections. This markup is used on Author and other Wikisource pages, it is not recommended for headings and sections in main pages.

• = First-level heading = (Should almost never be used, equivalent to the page title at the top of this page.)
• == Second-level heading == (The most common heading level, equivalent to "Wiki markup" above.)
• === Third-level heading === (A subsection - the word "Headings" above this passage is a third-level heading.)
• ==== Fourth-level heading ==== (A sub-subsection.)
• ===== Fifth-level heading =====

Lists

Lists, such as an author's works, can be given in simple point form using asterisks. The following is an unnumbered list:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3

Lists that require a numbered sequence can be created using the hash mark or octotrophe (#); the following list is numbered to illustrate:

1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item 3

Footnotes

Footnotes found at the bottom of the scanned page, denoted with ¹ * †, etc., can be replaced with <ref>footnote text</ref> inline and displayed at the bottom of the new page using {{smallrefs}} or <references />:

Wikitext	Result
And so he declareth unto the people, liek wut?<ref>Original spelling.</ref><ref>(Really.)</ref> <references />	And so he declareth unto the people, liek wut?

Note that new paragraphs in footnotes need to be marked up with an explicit <p> (paragraph) tag (just an opening one will suffice), to prevent consecutive paragraphs in a footnote being collapsed into one.

In the following example there is a single paragraph of text with a two-paragraph footnote within it.

Wikitext	Result
Without the <p> tag:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua<ref>Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. </ref>. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. <references />	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
With the <p> tag (the addition of which means we can also remove the newline before it):
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua<ref>Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. <p>Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. </ref>. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. <references />	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Page layout

• {{center}} centres a line or block of text

centered text

• {{right|right aligned text}}

right aligned text

• {{rule}} produces centered lines of defined width:

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• See also {{hanging indent}}, {{drop initial}}, {{gap}}, etc., in Category:Formatting templates. The use of {{running header}}, {{Hyphenated word start}}, etc., is explained at Help:Side by side image view for proofreading

Advanced

See m:Help:Editing for advanced help. (The instructions there are general, not specific to Wikisource.)