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Introduction to Markup (editing for beginners)

PmWiki gives authors many ways to change how what they write gets laid out on the page. To do this, authors add markup -- text with a special meaning -- to the page's content. This page introduces some of the more commonly-used markup and points to a number of more advanced options. The Markup master list page shows all available markup.

Character markup

Character markup consists of opening and closing marks around the selected text. These are combinations of characters that don't usually appear in ordinary prose. When the wiki encounters them, it changes the way the enclosed text is displayed.

Other character markup includes fixed-width typewriter font, superscript, subscript, underline, and strikeout. For more information and examples, see Character Markup.

Line markup

Authors can use a variety of start-of-line markup to define paragraphs, lists, and other structures. Line markup characters include a space (" "), exclamation point ("!"), asterisk ("*"), and pound-sign ("#"). When placed at the start of a paragraph, these characters act to give the wiki formatting instructions. When used anywhere but at the start of a paragraph, it's just that character, but when used as the very first character in a paragraph, it assumes special significance to the wiki.

If there is no start-of-line markup, the text is a plain paragraph. To break text into separate paragraphs, place a blank line between the paragraphs.

To make a heading, start the line with exclamation marks ("!").

!! A major heading
!!! A minor heading

To create a bulleted list, start each new line with an * markup character.

* Fat Freddy's Drop
* Phoenix Foundation
* Trinity Roots

To create a numbered list, start each new line with a # markup character.

# Kauri
# Totara
# Rimu

To indent text without a list symbol, start the line with -> markup.

->The World's Fastest Indian

For more information, see Line Markup.

Links

The [[ ... ]] markup turns text into a link. By making links to other pages or other web sites, authors makes it easier for people to find their way around. PmWiki organises pages into groups -- the full name of this page is PmWiki.EditGettingStarted; PmWiki is the group and EditGettingStarted is the name. To link to another page, an author needs to know its name.

Pages in the same group

To link to a page in the same group as the current page, such as Documentation Index, write [[Documentation Index]]. Many authors like to use capital letters for page names, but these are not essential; [[documentation index]] works just fine: documentation index.

Pages in other groups

To link to a page in another group, such as the Main.Home Page, write [[Main.Home Page]]. To link to a page in another group without showing the name of the group, such as the Home Page, write [[Main/Home Page]].

Pages on other sites

To link to a page on another site, such as http://example.com, write [[http://example.com]]. Or just write http://example.com -- that works too.

Link text

To link to an example instead of to http://example.com, write [[http://example.com | example]]. The [[link name | link text]] markup works for all types of link; thus [[Main.HomePage | Introduction]] produces Introduction.

More links

For more information, see links.

Block markup

Some markup affects the display of several lines of text -- or text blocks. See block markup.

Getting going

Authors can test these and other examples in the sandbox. Then explore tables, images, styles, list styles, page lists, and directives.