Tutorial (formatting)

Wiki markup

Writing for a wiki is a bit different from writing on a standard word processor. Instead of a "what you see is what you get" approach, wiki uses simple computer code for formatting.

The wiki can accept some HTML tags, but most people use the built-in wiki markup language, which is designed for ease of editing.

Bold and italics

The most commonly used wiki tags are bold and italics. Bolding and italicizing is done by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):

• ''italics'' is rendered as italics. (2 apostrophes on either side)
• '''bold''' is rendered as bold. (3 apostrophes on either side)
• '''''bolded italics''''' is rendered as bolded italics. (2 + 3 = 5 apostrophes on either side)

It is a Retro convention to boldface the subject of an article when it is first mentioned in the article. For example, the article Sonic the Hedgehog starts:

Sonic the Hedgehog (Japanese:ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Romaji: Sonikku za hejjihoggu) is the flagship character for video game, arcade game (and formerly home game console) company Sega...

Headings and subheadings

Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:

• ==Top level heading== (2 equals signs)
• ===Subheading=== (3 equals signs)
• ====Another level down==== (4 equals signs)
• =====Another level down===== (5 equals signs)

If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents will be automatically generated. Try creating a heading in the sandbox. It will be automatically added to the table of contents for the page. When you're done, click below to continue.

Continue with the tutorial.