Help:How to edit a page - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Help:How to edit a page - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to content
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
To start editing, click the
Edit
tab at the top right of a Wiktionary entry (but, obviously, not until you’ve finished reading this).
The
software
that powers Wiktionary is designed to make editing as easy as possible, but there are going to be a few strange things. That’s because you can create
far more than only plain text
Formatting
The
single quote
(or apostrophe) character ' has the following special uses for formatting text:
Italic text
is generated by typing two single quotes before and after the characters you want italicised, like this:
''Italic text''
Bold text
is generated by typing three single quotes before and after the characters you want bolded:
'''Bold text'''
You can of course combine the two to get
bold italic text
by using five single quotes:
'''''bold italic text'''''
Or, as is used in our example sentences, you can have an
italic sentence with
bold italic words
in it
... an ''italic sentence with '''bold italic words''' in it''
A single quote by itself has no special effect, so you can make words containing apostrophes
italicised
or
bold
too:
Typing
my ''dog's'' ball
gives you my
dog's
ball.
Typing
my '''dog's''' ball
gives you my
dog's
ball.
For possessives ending with an apostrophe:
For my
grandparents'
house, type
my ''grandparents''' house
For my
grandparents'
house, type
my '''grandparents'''' house
For my
grandparents'
house, type
my '''''grandparents'''''' house
The double quote " character has no special effect and can be used "normally" around or within italics and/or bold text:
He said, "now
you
too
can
type
some "bold" words
or
some "italic" words
."
He said, "now ''you'' too '''''can''''' type '''some "bold" words''' or ''some "italic" words''."
We
don’t use underlining
because it makes text look like links.
Basic lines
Looking at a dictionary entry, you can see that a lot of lines are different. For example, definitions are numbered, translations have a bullet point, example sentences are indented.
Numbered lines are made by
# Starting the line with a pound sign
Starting the line with a # sign
They should be used only for definitions
Bullet pointed lines are created for lines
* Starting with an asterisk
Starting with a * sign
They are used for any kind of list, in particular in translations.
Indented lines are those
: Starting with a colon
Starting with a : sign
These are used for example sentences in conjunction with # in the definitions section, and in discussions
It is possible to combine these, to create lists within lists – as I have done here, by putting two characters together.
An example definition
#:
With an
example
sentence
Links
Linking is one of the main benefits of a wiki like this. Links enable one-click navigation among related pages.
Although we haven’t used many on this page, you will often see
blue
text around, or occasionally
red
text. These are both links: the blue indicates that an entry exists (though not necessarily in the right language), the red that the entry does not exist yet and
may
need creating.
Words in
lists
always get linked, otherwise there is little point in having the list. Deciding when to use links in prose requires a bit of judgment; more detailed guidance may be found at
Wiktionary:Links
The use of an
unusual
word in a definition should be linked.
As should any technical terms that the
context
requires.
Here are some basics of
how
to make links. Although basic links are simple, linking effectively can be much neater, so a quick whiz through how to link:
A general link is created by typing double square brackets around the term,
[[thusly]]
, which is rendered
thusly
Links in Wiktionary are
case sensitive
so
[[Thusly]]
doesn’t work:
Thusly
Links should point to the main form of a word, and not its plurals or past tenses. In many cases this is easy:
To get
wanted
to link to “want” you type
[[want]]ed
Links can be surrounded with square brackets, but not in a normal way: using triple brackets won't work (e.g.
[[[target]]]
becomes [[[target]]]). Instead, try one of these:
Use round brackets (parentheses) instead, if appropriate (some say that parentheses within parentheses is bad style; [square brackets should be used instead, {and then curly braces within them if needed}]). Example:
([[target]])
→ (
target
).
Use the
HTML entities
of the brackets:
[
for the left-hand/opening one (
) and
]
for the right-hand/closing one (
). Example:
[[[view]]]
renders [
view
].
A quicker (to type), less cumbersome way of doing the same above is writing
{{
sqb
|term}}
(for
sq
uare
rackets), or the easier-to-remember
{{
brackets
|term}}
. Those are
templates
that write the entity codes for you. Examples:
{{sqb|gotten}}
yields [
gotten
], and
{{brackets|view}}
is equivalent to the example above.
In cases where a term won’t fit nicely like that, you have to tell it exactly what “target” page you want by using the “pipe” symbol | between the target and the term, like this:
[[target page|text to link from]]
For example, if the text word you want to link from is the plural “fora”, the target entry is the singular “forum”, so you type
[[forum|fora]]
, and it displays
fora
, but clicking it will take you to “forum”.
For idioms like “
help yourself
” Wiktionary uses the neutral pronoun “one” so
[[help oneself|help yourself]]
A link can be made to a
section
of a page using the hash symbol #. This can be effective to link to specific sections in large pages:
To link to the “Writing definitions” section in “Help:FAQ”, type
[[Help:FAQ#Writing definitions]]
, giving
Help:FAQ#Writing definitions
To link to a particular etymology’s part of speech (POS) section of an entry, like the 2nd etymology noun for the word “gloss”, put a number after the POS, like this:
[[gloss#Noun 2]]
, which gives you
gloss#Noun 2
. (Be aware though that even if the entry for the “target” term is well-settled, the number and/or order of etymologies, POS and definitions may change, and your link may end up pointing to a different one! See
Help talk:How to edit a page § Linking to a particular definition
.)
While using square brackets to create general links is often sufficient, and works similarly across various projects, when editing pages on Wiktionary you may want to consider using the
link template
in order to create more advanced links.
For example, the link template allows you to link to specific definitions within a page by using
sense IDs
, specify the part of speech or gender for a linked term, and more.
For more information on the link template, such as formatting instructions and examples, see
template:link
Always
check before saving the page
that links you create or edit take you where you intend them to. After clicking the “Show preview” button, use the link to open a new browser tab or new window (so you don’t lose your editing session!) and check the resulting page is what you (and other users) would want.
Headings
As you will see, on every entry there are numerous headings of different sizes, these are generated by typing
==Heading==
. The more equals signs are included, the smaller the heading will be. Wiktionary has very strict
guidelines
about the use of headings, which I would advise you to read through, when you have the time. But, as an introduction
==English==
===Noun===
====Synonyms====
which yields:
Noun
Synonyms
Special characters
You might also want to add characters you can’t type because they aren’t on your keyboard. You will almost certainly find any character you need in the box below the “Save page” button in editing mode. Just select the set of characters you need and have your pick. For a complete list of Unicode characters, look here:
Templates
One often encounters cryptic abbreviations enclosed by double curly brackets in the code. These are templates and automatically substitute text into the code. So if you need the same piece of code on many pages, creating a template might be a good idea. The string {{xyz}} will cause the page to be displayed as if the content of the page [[Template:xyz]] had been in its place. An example is
Template:rfc
which indicates that a page has been marked for clean-up on
Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup
. See
Wiktionary:Index to templates
Signing
If you are involved in a discussion, be it on a
talk page
or on a page such as
Wiktionary:Requests for deletion
, it is considered
good manners
to sign your (user) name at the end of your post. Signing is most easily done by typing four tildes (
~~~~
), which will automatically be converted into your username (linked to your user page) and a UTC time stamp.
But of course you never sign the actual dictionary entries as they are considered the collaborative work of many editors like you.
See also
Our
information for newcomers
and our
FAQ
The Wikipedia pages on
the Wiki markup
Our guide on
how to start a new page
Customization
Special:Preferences
→ “Editing” & “Gadgets” are both useful
Wiktionary:Per-browser preferences
– some preferences relevant for editing
User talk:Conrad.Irwin/edittools.js
– to customize the “edittools” (text you can insert)
Retrieved from "
Category
Help
Help
How to edit a page
Add topic