Wiki-Syntax Text

On this page, you'll learn how to format text on Wiki pages and other areas that support Wiki formatting (including articles, forums, and blogs).

The Markup Language Wiki-Syntax

The markup language used on a Wiki page is most commonly called Wiki Syntax. It uses common characters in uncommon ways (or character combinations that are not normally used together) and provides them with a special meaning. Some of the character combinations only work at the beginning of a line, while others can be inserted anywhere in the text and are active until they are turned off.

Wiki-Syntax uses a character repeated twice for most functions, but it also has a few 2-character combinations. With a 2-character combination, the characters are reversed when the function is turned off. MonoSpaced Text provides a good example of this; the Minus (-) and Plus (+) characters are used to start the using MonoSpaced Text and a Plus (+) and Minus (-) characters specify the end of it.

The following sections explain most of this.

Quick Reference - Basic Text Formatting

Toggle textarea with headline + / -

''(click the [+]to open)''
!!!- Hidden by default 
Text text text text
Text text text text
Text text text text

!!!+ Visible by default 
''(click the [-]to close)''
Text text text text
Text text text text
Text text text text

Hint: enclose the [+] and [-] in np (noparse) tags when using - they cannot be shown here in the CODE Plugin, as noparse tags conflict with the CODE Plugin

creates this:

''(click the [+]to open)''

Hidden by default

Visible by default

Basic Text Formatting

The Wiki-Syntax given in this section can be located anywhere in the text so that specific characters, words, or sentences can be emphasized.

Color Font

Text can be any color you want it to be. Two Tildes (~) are used followed by the name of a color and a Colon (:) to specify the start of the Colored Text. Two other Tildes (~) are used to end the Colored Text.

Color font can also be specified using HTML colors. HTML colors use 3 pairs of Hex numbers; one for Red, Blue, & Green so that 00 00 00 would produce white. The syntax is two Tildes (~) followed by the Pound (#) character and the Hex Numbers with a Colon (:) followed by the text to be colored. Two Tildes (~) mark the end of the Colored Text.

As of 3.0, the syntax was enhanced to also support background color changing.

(click the [+] to open)

Web-Safe HTML Colors

Bold Text

Two Underscore (_) characters are used to make text Bold.

Italic Text

Two Single Quote (') characters are used to make text Italic.

Underlined Text

Three Equal (=) characters are used to underline text.

Strikethrough text

Centered Text

Two Colon (:) characters are used to Center text. The Centered Text can be centered within a Box, a Table, or almost anything else.

Monospaced Text for Code

Monospaced Text is useful when displaying Code and can be created in two ways. The easiest is to start a new line with one or more spaces. The Minus (-) and Plus (+) character combination can also be used to specify a Monospaced Text. See also PluginMono for another way to apply the Monospace font.

If using a Monospaced Font, be sure to keep the line length short. If the lines are too long, they will push the right column out of the browser display area.
❗ The Leading Space Monospaced Font is disabled on many sites.

Superscript and subscript

Use the {TAG} plugin (also see PluginTag).

Another alternative is to use the {SUB} and {SUP} plugins which are documented at PluginSub and PluginSup.

Text box

Apply one caret at the start and end of the text to be in a box.

Example: ^This Text is in a box^ produces:

NOTE: This CSS style is called "simplebox" and may look different or may not exist, depending on your theme CSS.

Plain Text

To turn off tiki formatting, surround your text with 'np' a.k.a. 'no processing' tags

Example: ~np~This ''text'' is __not__ being ===formatted===~/np~ produces:

This ''text'' is __not__ being ===formatted===

NOTE: np tags cannot be used within an np block. To display an unprocessed ~np~ tag, escape all the characters (not just the tildes) while in normal processing mode:

~126~~110~~112~~126~ produces: ~np~
~126~~47~~110~~112~~126~ produces: ~/np~

Headings

Headings are formed by starting the line with one, two, or three exclamation marks ("!", "!!", or "!!!").

Numbered Headings

In tiki 2.0 and above, you can create numbered headings using a combination of the ! and # characters

• !# My Heading will produce "1.0 My Heading"
• !!# My Secondary Heading will produce "1.1 My Secondary Heading"
• !!!# My Tertiary Heading will produce "1.1.1 My Tertiary Heading"

See: Headings

LineBreak (forced)

Basic WIKI markup language doesn't include "linebreak" element.
Nevertheless, with Tiki you can use a special command to force linebreaks into a text :
line break code (%%%), like so:
;:text %%% text %%% text
will look like this:

text
text
text

Note: There must be printable text after the linebreak. A space is not sufficient to introduce a blank line.

Indent

Indent is formed by the combination of the ; and : characters. ; must appear at the beginning of a line and : must appear between introduction text and the indented text. The introduction text portion is useful for forming definition type indention like Example 1 below. However, the introduction text can be eliminated by simply including ;: together followed by the text as shown in Example 2.

Using Square Brackets

If you wish to include square brackets in your text (i.e. as regular text and not a link) simply add an additional open bracket to start. E.g.

[[this would not be a link]

Would render like this...

[this would not be a link]

Non-breaking space

Use ~hs~ to add the HTML " " for a non-breaking space.

~tc~ this is a tiki comment ~/tc~

Will be kept in the Wiki source file but not seen when the HTML page is generated or HTML page source is viewed.

~hc~ this is an HTML comment ~/hc~

Will be kept in the Wiki source file and will generate an HTML comment of the form

<!-- this is an HTML comment -->

An HTML comment will not be seen when the page is viewed but will be seen when the HTML page source is viewed.

Displaying code

You enter code blocks by enclosing the block between

{CODE()} and {CODE}

.

This is a WikiPlugin, which extends the WikiSyntax.

Citation-style blockquotes

When Pluginquote is enabled, use this Tiki syntax code to make a simple blockquote properly:

{QUOTE()}
One of the hardest lessons of GUI programming is that hard coding behavior can be the Right Thing. Programmers are taught to make everything generic and infinitely flexible. The problem is that the more generic and infinitely flexible your UI is, the more similar it is to a programming language.
— [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000059.html | Joel Spolsky], April 2000
{QUOTE}

…which will render like this:

See PluginQuote for additional parameters that can be used as metadata for the quote.

You can also accomplish this using Markdown syntax, like this example:

{MARKDOWN()}
> As Joel points out, advanced users do not want a million (…) preferences when things should just work on their own. The point rings true in my experience.
> 
> — Havoc Pennington
{MARKDOWN}

…which will render like this:

As Joel points out, advanced users do not want a million (…) preferences when things should just work on their own. The point rings true in my experience.

— Havoc Pennington

Other Ways to Indent a Text Block

You can use the div module if it's enabled like so:

{div(type="blockquote")}Bananas
Apples
Oranges{div}

Will result in:

Bananas

Apples

Oranges

Useful Links