Help:VisualEditor/User guide

If you would like to try the visual editor without editing an article, here is a page where you can freely test it. You don't need an account to use the visual editor on that page.

To edit a page using the visual editor, press on the Edit tab at the top of the page.

It may take a few seconds for the page to open for editing, and longer if the page is very long.

Pressing on the Edit source tab will open the classic wikitext source editor.

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You can also open the visual editor by pressing on the edit link on each section.

The visual editor's toolbar appears at the top of the screen when you begin editing. It includes some familiar icons:

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Undo and Redo the changes you have made.

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Headings pull-down menu: allows you to change how the paragraph is formatted. To change the style of a paragraph, put your cursor in the paragraph and select an item in this menu (you don't have to highlight any text). Section titles are formatted Heading, and subsections are Sub-heading 1, Sub-heading 2, and so on. The normal format for text is Paragraph.

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Formatting: Pressing the "A" opens a menu.

• The Bold item (B) bolds the selected text.
• The Italic item (I) italicizes the selected text.
• The Superscript item (x²) causes the selected text to appear smaller than surrounding text and to be slightly higher than the surrounding text.
• The Subscript item (x₂) causes the selected text to appear smaller than surrounding text and to be slightly lower than the surrounding text.
• The Strikethrough item ((削除) S (削除ここまで)) adds a solid bar through the selected text.
• The Computer code item (a set of curly brackets: {}) changes the font of the selected text to a monospaced font, which sets it apart from surrounding (proportionally spaced) text.
• The Underline item (U) adds a solid line beneath the selected text.
• The Language item (文A) allows you to label the language (for example, Japanese) and direction (for example, right-to-left) of the selected text.
• The final item ( ), called Remove, removes all character formatting from the selected text, including links.

If you have not selected any text, then when you press the "A" to open the menu, and then select an item, that formatting will apply to the text that you start typing, from wherever your cursor is located.

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Linking tool: The chain icon is the linking tool. Pressing on it (usually after selecting some text) opens the link dialog.

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Cite menu: The Cite menu is used to add inline citations (also called "footnotes" or "references"). All projects have access to basic reference formatting and the ability to reuse citations by using this menu.

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Cite button: If the Citoid service and/or citation tool is enabled on your wiki, you will see a Cite button instead of a Cite menu.

Instructions for adding local citation templates to the Manual tab at a specific wiki are available at VisualEditor/Citation tool .

Instructions for enabling the Automatic tab are available at Enabling Citoid on your wiki

The Citoid service tries to fill out citation templates automatically.

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Lists and indentation: The first two items allow you to format text as either a Bullet list or a Numbered list. The last two items allow you to decrease or increase the indentation level of list items.

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Insert: The Insert menu may be different on some projects. Below is a list of all options that may appear.

• The Images and media icon (a picture of mountains) opens the media dialog.
• The Template icon (a puzzle piece) allows you to edit templates.
• The "Table" item allows you to insert a table.
• The Comment item (a speech balloon) allows you to insert comments that are not visible to readers; these comments can be seen only when in edit mode, where they are indicated by an exclamation mark icon. In edit mode, pressing on the exclamation mark icon allows you to edit or delete the comment.
• The Hieroglyphs icon (an ankh symbol - ☥) allows you to enter the hieroglyphics inserter. (See below.)
• The "Code block" item allows you to insert code.
• The "Musical notation" item allows you to insert a musical notation.
• The Gallery icon (a set of photos) allows you to insert a gallery to the page.
• The Math formula icon (Σ) opens the formula inserter dialog.
• The "Graph" item allows you to insert a graph.
• The Your signature item allows you to insert a signature that you use on the project. It will be greyed out (not selectable) when you are editing a type of page (a "namespace "), such as an article, where signatures should not be inserted.
• The References list icon (three books) opens a dialog in which you can specify where references will be displayed to the reader. Usually this needs to be done only once on a page.

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Special character insertion: The Special character (Ω) icon is next to the Insert menu. When pressed, it displays a dialog showing many special characters. By pressing on a specific character, you place it into the text. These special characters include some standard symbols, diacritics, and mathematical symbols. (This list may be customized locally. See VisualEditor/Special characters for instructions.)

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The Edit notices button displays any notices for the page.

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The Page options menu is to the left of the Publish changes button and the Switch editor menu. On this menu there is a button to open an Options dialog with the following (left side) tabs:

• Categories allows you to add categories to this page and to adjust how the page is sorted, when displayed within a category by setting a different index to sort with.
• Page settings allows you to make the page a redirect and adjust options of this redirect, to adjust settings regarding the displaying of the Table of Contents, to disable the edit links next to each heading, and to define the page as a disambiguation page.
• Advanced settings allows you to adjust the settings regarding indexation of the page by search engines, showing a tab to add a new section, and the displayed title.
• Languages shows a list of pages in other languages that are linked to that page.
• Templates used shows a list of links to each template used on this page.

The tabs of the Options dialog are also displayed in the Page options menu and can be opened by clicking on it. Furthermore the Page options menu contains the items View as left-to-right or View as right-to-left and the item Find and replace , which opens a bar, where you can insert words or regular expressions you are searching for and those to replace them with, together with several buttons for options.

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The Switch editor button is next to the Publish changes button. It allows you to switch to the wikitext editor.

When you are finished editing, press the blue Publish changes button in the toolbar. If you have made no changes, the button will be disabled (grayed out). To cancel all your editing changes, close your browser window, or press the Read tab above the edit toolbar.

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Pressing the blue Publish changes... button opens a dialog. You can then enter a brief summary of your actions, mark your edit as minor, and add the page to your watchlist. The box for the summary is the equivalent of the Summary ^(?): field in the wikitext editor.

You can also review your changes using the Review your changes button to confirm that they will function as intended before saving your changes. This is similar to the Show changes button in the wikitext editor.

The Resume editing button returns you to the page you were editing. You can publish all of your changes later.

Links can be added through the Link icon (links in a chain) in the toolbar, or by using the shortcut Ctrl+K (or ⌘ Command+K on a Mac).

If you select (highlight) text and then press the Link button, that text will be used in creating the link. For a link that involves only one word, you can either select that word or just put the cursor within that word.

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When you use either the button or the shortcut, a dialog will open in which you may type the link.

The link tool will try to help with internal links by searching for likely matches. Once you have entered or selected the link, you complete the linking process by pressing ↵ Enter or by pressing the Done button. Your link will immediately appear on the page, but as with other changes to the page, it will not be published until you publish the entire page.

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To link to a web page on another website, the process is similar: Choose the External site tab, and enter a URL in the box.

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External links without labels look like this: [1]. You can add these by placing your cursor away from any word (e.g., after a space). Open the link tool by pressing on the button or pressing the shortcut keys. Type the URL in the box, and press the Done button to insert the link.

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To change or remove an existing link, press within the text for that link, then press the Link icon that appears near it. The dialog will appear, for editing. You can also get to the dialog with the Ctrl+K keyboard shortcut. When a link is selected, it appears as blue framed.

In the link editing dialog, you can then change where the link goes. You can also remove the link entirely by pressing the Remove button in the upper right corner of the dialog. You can also open the link's target in another window by pressing on the copy of the link in the dialog box. (You might want do this to check if an external link is valid.)

If you want to exit the link label (the text displayed as a link) or continue to write after this link, you can press →:

• Pressing it once will escape the link editing dialog and put your cursor at the end of the element linked (blue framed, to edit this element)
• Pressing it twice will put the cursor after the element linked, ready to type the rest of your text.

To edit the link label of an existing link, press within the link label and type the new one. But if you want to replace the entire label, please note:

• If you have selected (highlighted) the entire link label, the link will be deleted by typing any key.
• To edit the link label directly without deleting it, put the cursor within that link label, use the ← Backspace and Del keys (no more than necessary), and a narrow blue link area will remain there. Now you may type in the new label for the kept link.
• You can also link to categories, files and more.

Your wiki may use one of three footnote systems. The one shown on the right is the simplest system, where the Cite menu does not include any citation templates. If your wiki uses this system, then everything you need to know about footnotes is on this page.

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In the second system, you again start by pressing the Cite button. Then a dialog box opens, which includes several popular citation templates set up for quick access in the Manual tab. If your wiki uses this system, then you will find more details at Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citation templates .

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In the third system, you again start by pressing the Cite button. Then a dialog box opens, which includes an automatic citation process using the Citoid service under the Automatic tab. If your wiki uses this system, you will find more details at Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citations-Full

To edit an existing reference, press on it where it appears in the text (usually as a bracketed number). You will see either a Reference icon (bookmark) or an icon (and name) for the template that was used to create this reference. In either case, pressing on the Edit button will open a dialog where you can edit the reference.

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For the Reference icon, pressing Edit opens the reference dialog. To start changing the reference information, press on it.

Many wikis use templates to format references. If a template is used in your reference, then when you move your pointer over the reference information, all the information in that field will be highlighted.

If a template was used and you press on the reference information, then the Template icon (puzzle piece) will appear with some information. Press on the Edit button to edit the content of the template in the template editor dialog.

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If what appears when you press on a reference is an icon for a standard template for citations (an example is at right), then pressing Edit will open the template editor dialog.

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Inside the template editor, you can add or remove types of information or change current content. Only fields (template parameters) that have content will show, initially. To add fields, press on Add at the bottom of the editor.

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Press on Apply changes when you are done.

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If the page already contains a citation that applies to the text you want to source, then you can choose to re-use that existing citation.

To re-use an existing reference, place your cursor in the body of the text where you want to add a new reference (number) for that citation. Then press on the Re-use item from the Cite menu.

(Note: If your wiki has the second or third footnote system described above, you'll see a Re-use tab, in a dialog, instead of a Re-use item on the Cite menu.)

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In the Reference dialog, look at the list for the reference you want to reuse, and select it. If there are many references, you can use the search box (labeled Search within current citations) to list only those references that include certain text.

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To add a citation using the Cite menu, place your cursor where you want to add it in the text. Then click Basic.

Shown here is what you will see if you select the basic references item. In the Reference editor, you can add your citation, including formatting.

You can make the reference belong to a given group, although normally this is left blank. (This option is used to display groups of references with the References list tool.)

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In the Reference dialog, if you want to include a citation template, or any other template, in your new reference, press the Template icon (puzzle piece) in the Insert toolbar menu within the Reference editor.

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Then, look for the template you want to use, add it and edit it as you would any other template. (See the Editing templates section, below, if you need more information about templates.)

After you are done editing your new template, press on Apply changes to return to the Reference editor, and Apply changes again to return to the page you are editing.

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If there isn't already a list of references on the page (for example, if you are adding the first reference for the page), you need to specify where the list of references, and their text, will be displayed to the reader.

Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page), open the Insert menu and press the References list icon (three books).

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If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you can specify the group in this dialog. Only the references that belong to that group will be displayed on the page at the location where you are placing the group.

The final step in the References list dialog is to press Insert.

Your local wiki may have added extra citation templates to the Cite menu. If so, you have quick access to the most-used citation templates for your wiki. (Instructions for adding extra citation templates to your local wiki are available at VisualEditor/Citation tool .)

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Pressing on a template icon such as "Cite book" will take you into the template editor for that template. Important information fields may be marked with an asterisk. While the most common fields will be shown, not all of them are required.

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To add more parameters, scroll down in the template editor and press on the Add option.

Press on Insert when you are done.

To add a new image (or another type of media file) to the page, press the Images and media icon (a picture of mountains) in the Insert menu. The image will be added wherever your cursor is.

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Pressing the Images and media icon opens a dialog that automatically searches Wikimedia Commons and your local wiki for media files related to the title of the page you are editing.

You can change the search by changing the text in the dialog's search box.

To choose a file, press on its thumbnail image.

This places the image onto the page you are editing.

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After the image you selected is inserted into the page, another dialog will open. This dialog allows you to add and edit the caption of the image. The caption can contain formatting and links.

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The media dialog also allows you to add alternative text captions, to help users who use screen readers, or who have disabled image display.

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You can also set various parameters for the image in the Advanced settings window. These include the alignment, the type, and size of the image.

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When you are done, press Apply changes to close the dialog and return to editing the page.

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For an existing image, you can add or edit a caption or other settings by pressing on the image, then pressing on the Images and media icon that appears below the picture.

You can resize an existing image by pressing on it, then moving the resize icon (the two-headed arrow on one or both bottom corners).

You can also drag and drop an image to a place higher or lower on the page.

You can upload images from a tab in the media dialog, or by dragging and dropping a file into the editor, or by pasting an image from your clipboard.

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Press the Upload tab and select an image from your computer. You can type the file name, or drag an image into the box. If you dragged and dropped an image directly into the editor, or pasted one from your clipboard, this tab will open automatically.

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You need to describe the image and add categories to it so that other people can find it.

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The image will be inserted into the page when you are done.

To add a new gallery, press the Gallery icon (a set of photos) on the Insert menu. (If you don't see this icon on that menu, then your local wiki has decided to delay implementing this functionality in the visual editor.)

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To edit an existing gallery in the visual editor, press that gallery. Then, near the bottom of the gallery, press the gallery icon (a set of photos). This brings up the gallery editor, with the full list of images included in the gallery.

The gallery editor is currently a simple box that allows you to edit existing galleries using wikitext markup. To add a new image to an existing gallery, type the file name, followed by a bar (|) and the caption for that image. You must put each image in the gallery on its own line. You can also edit this list to remove or rearrange images or to change captions.

When you press the Done button, you will exit the gallery editor. You should then see your changes, with the gallery as it will now appear to readers.

Remember that exiting the gallery editor does not publish your changes. As with other changes made using the visual editor, you must publish the entire page in order to publish your work.

To add a template to a page, place your cursor at the position on the page where you want the template to be inserted. Then open the Insert menu and select " Template". Alternatively, type two curly brackets {{ to open the same dialog.

Find the template you want to insert by typing either its name or a relevant keyword. Results containing the search term in either the name or description will display in a dropdown. This should help you find a relevant template, even if you don’t know its exact name.

There are a number of other ways to discover templates that may be useful to you: you can mark some templates as your favorites, browse them by category, or view your wiki's list of featured templates. Documentation about these features is available at Help:TemplateData/Template discovery .

You can also look for other wiki pages with similar content and view or edit their page source to see which templates are in use. When you find the desired template’s name, you can type it into this field to insert it here.

Screenshot of the template search field in the Visual Editor

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You can also edit a template that’s already on a page. When you select the template you want to edit, it turns blue, and a box appears displaying Template. Then select the Edit link or double click on the template itself to open the template.

Screenshot of the VisualEditor interface with a template selected

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Some templates are not visible to someone reading a page. In the visual editor, such hidden templates are still shown so that you can click and edit or delete them. The name of the template will be shown next to the puzzle icon and both will be grayed out.

Screenshot of hidden templates in the Visual Editor interface

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You’ll see this dialog box when you’re adding a new template or editing one already in place. What you see in the box depends on whether the template in question contains TemplateData , helpful metadata added by other editors to make it easier to edit templates in the Visual Editor.

When a template contains TemplateData, the VisualEditor can use it to present annotated fields for you to fill in.

For templates that have some community-provided TemplateData, the VisualEditor displays a list of the named parameters and, often, descriptions and instructions explaining the meaning and required format for each parameter’s values.

Screenshot of template parameters in the Visual Editor interface

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You can disable any optional parameter (which have blue checkboxes on the left side). If a parameter’s checkbox is grayed out and not clickable, the template requires that parameter, so it can’t be disabled.

When you insert a new template, you may find that some optional parameters are pre-selected. That means the author(s) of the template recommends the use of those parameters. It’s best to review all parameters that will be used in a template to ensure you understand their use.

Clicking an unchecked parameter adds it to the template. Clicking a parameter that’s already been added takes you to the parameter’s input field.

Some template parameters will show as "deprecated". Don’t use deprecated parameters when inserting a template; they’re only visible to you because those parameters are in use on older pages where this template was included.

Screenshot of template parameters in the Visual Editor interface

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If you’re inserting or editing a template whose author hasn’t laid out its parameters in TemplateData, it has what we call "undocumented" or "unnamed parameters". In these cases, you should consult the page for the template itself. There you can learn how to correctly employ and work with all of the template’s parameters. This includes learning the exact names of the parameters as written by the template author.

If you find in the documentation that the template expects parameters without names, fill in numbers as placeholders for the parameter names using the undocumented parameter input, then add text to the values you want to provide as you normally would.

Example:

• first unnamed parameter: "1"
• first unnamed parameter’s value: "en_US"
• second unnamed parameter: "2"
• second unnamed parameter’s value: "yes"

If you accidentally include nonexistent, misspelled or erroneous parameters, the values you enter for those parameters won’t show up on the page you’re editing.

Screenshot of a template missing TemplateData

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In this example, the template in question lacks TemplateData but it was possible to autogenerate the parameters. This means that the undocumented parameters have already been added for you, but the names may not be easily understandable and the dialog cannot display any directions or descriptions. As a result the dialog box provides a link to the template’s documentation, which should help you deduce and fill in the template’s various parameters.

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During editing, you may open template content consisting of multiple templates or a single template linked to some wikitext. This differs from the nested templates described below. In this case, the templates are better visualized as being stacked or connected.

This content often contains "unbalanced templates," templates which are incomplete on their own and need to be paired with some wikitext or another template in order to function.

These related pieces of template content must be created in wikitext, but can be edited in the VisualEditor. In these cases you will see a notice at the top of the dialog to signal the situation and a specialized toolbar will be visible at the bottom of the sidebar. There you can use the icon buttons to add additional templates, additional wikitext, delete elements or change their order.

Screenshot of the interface to edit multi-part template content in the VisualEditor

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Templates can include other templates as the value for parameters. You’ll recognize it when you see a parameter whose value contains the double curly braces ( {{ }} ) denoting a template.

The VisualEditor can’t present this template within a template (a nested template) using the editor’s easy-to-use interface, so if you want to nest a template yourself, you’ll need to understand how to add the template by hand in wikitext into the appropriate parameter field.

Screenshot of the VisualEditor template interface showing an embedded template

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When you have finished editing a template, you can click Apply changes. Then you can preview your edit and make sure it looks the way you want and expect.

You may also see an error message, which (like the other TemplateData mentioned above) is community-provided content and may vary in usefulness. You may need to consult the template’s own documentation to get to the bottom of some errors. If you’re still having trouble, consider posting about your problem on the template’s talk page.

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To remove a template in the VisualEditor, click the template box. Press the Del or ← Backspace key on your keyboard. The template will disappear from the page.

Screenshot of the button to remove a template

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When editing a template on a page using the VisualEditor on a mobile device, you’ll see that the sidebar starts out hidden. You can make it visible by pressing the "Show/hide options" button.

Screenshot of editing a template on a mobile device

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When you insert a template in a wiki page, its content and appearance are reevaluated every time the page loads, based on the template code and the values of its parameters. This means if someone updates the code of a template, then every page which uses that template will also get updated when they publish.

There’s another, much less common way to use templates, though, and that’s to substitute a template. Doing this permanently includes the template content just as it appears at the moment you insert it. It will not update if the template code is later changed.

Most users won’t ever need to resort to substitution. Substitution is typically only useful when you need to capture the exact appearance of one version of a template, such as when content is under development and needs evaluation.

To substitute a template in the VisualEditor, insert a template using the name syntax subst:<template name>. Then press the blue "Add" button.

When you’re finished, press "Insert", which will insert the template content as you see it.

Screenshot of editor using SUBST to add a template

You can use the visual editor to create lists, or to change the format of an existing list. There are two types of lists: unordered (bullet) and ordered (numbered).

To start a new list, just press on one of the two menu items shown here. Or, if you already have typed the list (on separate lines), select (highlight) the list you have typed, then press on one of the menu items.

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Shown here are examples of the two types of lists: unordered (bullet) and ordered (numbered).

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If you want to change the indentation level of part of an existing list, select the part of the list that you want to change.

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Then use the menu, or press the Tab key. (The Tab key increases indentation; use the shift key plus the Tab key to decrease indentation)

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Here is the result of increased indentation.

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You can even mix ordered (numbered) and unordered (bullet) lists, if the list items have different indentations.

You can use the visual editor to insert and change tables.

You can even import a table by dragging a comma-separated value (.csv) file from your computer into the main editing window.

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When you press on "Table", in the Insert menu, the visual editor inserts a blank four-by-four table.

Now the "Table" menu is available. From that menu, you can add a caption to the top of the table.

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To select a cell, press it once.

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To edit the contents of the cell (for example, to add content or to correct a spelling error), double press in the cell. Or you can select the cell and then press Return.

To end your editing of a cell, just press elsewhere.

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You can add, move or delete a column or a row.

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You can merge cells: Select them, then from the Table menu, press on "Merge cells".

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If you merge cells, only the text in one cell is kept; any text in the other cells is deleted when you merge the cells. If you decide that you wanted some or all of the text that was deleted, use the Undo button, move or copy the text you want, then merge the cells again.

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You can also split cells that were previously merged. All the content that was in the merged cell will remain in the first cell when you do the split. You can then cut and paste text to other cells, if you want.

To edit categories, on the Page options menu, press the Categories item.

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Pressing on Categories opens a dialog that lists existing categories and allows you to add new ones, and to delete existing categories.

You also have the option of setting or changing the general (default) sorting key, which determines where the page appears when listed with other pages in the same category.

For example, the default sorting key for the article "George Washington" is "Washington, George". In the category "Presidents of the United States", the article is listed under the letter "W", not the letter "G".

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To add a category for a page, type the name of the category into the field Add a category. As you type, the visual editor will search for possible matching, existing categories. You can either select an existing category, or you can add a category that doesn't yet have its own category page. (Until that category page is created, your new category will show as a red link after you publish all your editing changes.)

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To remove an existing category, press on it and press on the Remove icon (trash can) in the dialog that opens.

Pressing on a category also allows you to specify a sorting key for that specific category. Such a sorting key overrides the default sorting key.

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Press Apply changes when you are done editing categories to return to the page editor.

To edit a page's settings, press to open the Page options menu, in the toolbar, and select the Page settings button.

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The Page settings button opens a dialog that shows several options.

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You can make a page a redirect to another page by checking the Redirect this page to checkbox, and then typing the name of the page to which you want to send the reader who tries to go to the page that you are editing.

At the bottom is the option to prevent page renames from updating this redirect. This is very rarely used.

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You can change whether the page shows a Table of Contents by selecting one of these three buttons. The default option is If needed, which shows a Table of Contents if there are three or more headings.

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You can make a page not show edit links next to each section header by checking this checkbox.

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Press Apply changes when you are done editing the Page options to return to the page editor.

You can add and change maps. See Help:VisualEditor/Maps .

To add a new mathematical formula to the page, place your cursor where you want it to be inserted, and press on the Math formula icon ("Σ") in the Insert menu on the toolbar.

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A window will open in which you can type the formula, using LaTeX syntax. the visual editor will update the formula as you type it, so you can see how it will look as you make changes. Once you are happy with the formula, press the Insert button.

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To edit an existing mathematical formula on the page, press on it and then press on the "Σ" icon that appears. This will open up the formula window, where you make changes.

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Mathematical formulae can be placed inline or centered as a block.

To add a new musical notation to a page, place your cursor where you want the musical notation to be inserted. Then, from the "Insert" menu on the toolbar, press the "Musical notation" option.

To edit an existing musical notation on the page, double press on it.

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This will open the "Musical notation" dialog. Here the notation can be edited by scale, either in ABC or in Lilypond format. You can also link the notation to an audio or MIDI file. Once you are finished, press the "Done" button to close the dialog and publish your changes.

Some items, such as association lists and poems, are not yet fully supported by the visual editor.

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In most cases, the existing items can be edited, but new ones cannot be inserted in the visual editor.

Until they are fully supported, you can copy an existing one from another page, or edit the source wikitext directly.

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To switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor, press the [[ ]] button on the far right of the toolbar.

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You'll see a diff. (If you pressed on Discard edits, you'll just see wikitext, ready to edit with the wikitext editor.)

Scroll down, and you'll see the wikitext editing area.

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You can also switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor. To do that, press the pencil icon on the far right of the toolbar.