Editing Basic Formatting (section)

=== Internal Links ===

To create a so-called internal link to a page on the same wiki (a "wikilink"), use double square brackets wiki markup, [[like this]]. When you preview or save your changes, you will see a link that can be followed to the target page. If the page exists the link is displayed in blue (like the word "create" in the first sentence of this paragraph); if the page does not exist, the link appears red (so the [[like this]] link is actually rendered like this). Note that the colors could be different if the color scheme of the wiki has been changed from the default. Following such a "redlink" to a missing page (whether or not it is actually red) will usually enable the user to create the page.

To markup any arbitrary string of text (not necessarily a page title) as a link, use a "vertical bar" or "pipe" character, like this: [[Help:Categories|category links]] results in the link category links.

The first letter of the link target is usually not case-sensitive (unless the wiki is configured otherwise), meaning links can be capitalized or not (so How to contribute and how to contribute are equivalent). However, the case of every subsequent letter must match the target page exactly (so How to contribute and How To Contribute are not equivalent). Spaces in the page title may be represented as underscores (so How to contribute and How_to_contribute are again equivalent), but using underscores in links will make them visible in the page text (but this can be prevented by using a "pipe").

If the page title you are linking to is that of the page you are editing, the result is not a hyperlink at all but simply bold text (for example, on this page the markup [[Help:Links]] gives the result Help:Links). If you're trying to create a wikilink to the current page, you probably want to link to a specific section or to an anchor within the page; see the examples below.

MediaWiki uses the pagelinks table to keep track of internal wikilinks.
<div class="noresize">
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
! Name/Description
! Syntax
!  Result

|-
| Internal link
|<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">
[[Main Page]]

[[Help:Contents]]

[[Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia)]]
</syntaxhighlight>
|
[[Main Page]]

[[Help:Contents]]

[[Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia)]]

|-
| Piped link
|
<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">[[Help:Editing pages|editing help]]</syntaxhighlight>

Links to a section/anchor within the target page.
<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">[[Help:Editing pages#Preview|previewing]]</syntaxhighlight>

Piped link to an anchor on the same page
|
[[Help:Editing pages|editing help]]

[[Help:Editing pages#Preview|previewing]]

|-
|[[W:Help:Pipe trick|Pipe trick]]
|<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">
[[Manual:Extensions|]]

[[User:John Doe|]]

[[Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia)|]]

[[Extension:DynamicPageList (disambiguation)|]]
</syntaxhighlight>
The transformation done by the pipe trick can result in the same text for different link targets, as seen in the DynamicPageList examples.
|
{{ll|Manual:Extensions|Extensions}}

[[User:John Doe|John Doe]]

[[Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia)|DynamicPageList]]

[[Extension:DynamicPageList (disambiguation)|DynamicPageList]]

|-
|<span id="linktrail"></span>Word-ending links
|<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">
[[Help]]s

[[Help]]ing

[[Help]]ers

[[Help]]almostanylettersyoulikehere

[[Help]]BUTnotalways
</syntaxhighlight>Follows so-called "linktrail rules" [[Special:MyLanguage/Localisation|localised]] per [[Special:MyLanguage/MessagesXx.php|each language]]
|
[[Help]]s

[[Help]]ing

[[Help]]ers

[[Help]]almostanylettersyoulikehere

[[Help]]BUTnotalways

|-
| Avoiding word-ending links
|<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">
[[Help]]<nowiki />ful advice

[[wikipedia:GNU General Public License|GPL]]<nowiki />v3
</syntaxhighlight>
|
[[Help]]<nowiki />ful advice

[[wikipedia:GNU General Public License|GPL]]<nowiki />v3

|-
| Link to an anchor on the same page
|<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki">[[#See also]]</syntaxhighlight>
Anchors are provided automatically on name=formatting>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Formatting|section headings]] and to the [[Basic Formatting#top|top]] (<code><nowiki>[[#top]]</nowiki></code>) of the page.
|

|-
|Setting an anchor for incoming links
|<syntaxhighlight lang=html>
<div id="Unique anchor name 1">optional text</div>

<span id="Unique anchor name 2">optional text</span>
</syntaxhighlight>

Rendered [[W:HTML element#Document body elements|block-level and inline]], respectively.</translate>
<Doing this would allow for <code><nowiki>[[#Unique anchor name 1]]</nowiki></code> on the same page or <code><nowiki>[[</nowiki>{{FULLPAGENAME}}#Unique anchor name 1]]</code> on a different page.
Omit the "optional text" for an invisible anchor.

Setting an anchor in a section heading

<syntaxhighlight lang=html>
==<span id="Alternate Section Title"></span>Section heading==
</syntaxhighlight>

Note the placement.
This must be a "span" tag, not a "div".
(Such anchors allow sections to be retitled without breaking incoming links.)

|
<div id="<translate nowrap> Unique anchor name 1 optional text</div>

<span id="<translate nowrap>Unique anchor name 2 optional text</span>

<div style="color: #000000; background: none; overflow: hidden; page-break-after: avoid; font-size: 1.5em; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; line-height: 1.3; padding: 0; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAAAAA;"><span id="Alternate Section Title"></span>Section heading</div>
|-
| Link to an anchor at another page
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[Help:Images#Supported media types for images]]</syntaxhighlight>
|[[Help:Images#Supported media types for images]]

|-
| Link to the current page's talk page
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|Discussion]]</syntaxhighlight>
See also [[name=page-names>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Magic_words#Page_names|Help:Magic words#Page names]]
|[[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|Discussion]]

|-
|{{anchor|Subpage_feature}}Link to a subpage
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[/example]]</syntaxhighlight>
Shortcut for<syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki" inline>[[Help:Links/example|/example]]</syntaxhighlight>See also >{{ll|Help:Subpages}}
|[[Help:Links/example|/example]]

|-
| Link to a subpage without the leading slash
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[/example/]]</syntaxhighlight>
<translate><!--T:99--> Shortcut for <tvar name=1><syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki" inline>[[Help:Links/example|example]]</syntaxhighlight></tvar>.</translate>
|[[Help:Links/example|example]]

|-
| Link to a subpage of parent page for current page.Can only be used on subpages.
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[../example2]]</syntaxhighlight>
Shortcut for <syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki" inline>[[Help:Links/example2|example2]]</syntaxhighlight>if you post the link on <tvar name=2><syntaxhighlight lang="mediawiki" inline>[[Help:Links/example|example]]</syntaxhighlight>page.
|[[Help:Links/example2|example2]]

|-
| Visible link to a category page
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[:Category:Help]]</syntaxhighlight>
Without the leading colon the link would not be visible and the page would instead be placed into the category; this is a very common mistake.
See also {{ll|Help:Categories}}
|[[:Category:Help]]

|-
| Visible link to an image or media file
|id="file-links"|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>
[[:File:Example.jpg]]

[[:File:Example.jpg|file label]]

[[Media:Example.jpg]]

[[Media:Example.jpg|file label]]
</syntaxhighlight>

Without the leading colon on the "File:" examples, the images would actually be displayed.
See also {{ll|Help:Images}}

The <code>Media:</code>prefix is used to link directly to the uploaded file, rather than the file-information page.
|
[[:File:Example.jpg]]

[[:File:Example.jpg|file label]]

[[Index.php?title=Media:Example.jpg|Media:Example.jpg]]

[[Index.php?title=Media:Example.jpg|file label]]

|-
|Link to a page specific to each reader (user page, etc.)
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>
[[Special:MyPage]]

[[Special:MyTalk]]

[[Special:Preferences]]
</syntaxhighlight>
|
[[Special:MyPage]]

[[Special:MyTalk]]

[[Special:Preferences]]

|-
| Internal link to a specific revision
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>[[Special:PermanentLink/2393992]]</syntaxhighlight>
Revision numbers can be found in each page's [[Special:MyLanguage/Help:History|edit history]
(It is very common to see links to specific revisions implemented as external links because it's easy to cut-and-paste an entire URL to form an external link.)
|[[Special:PermanentLink/2393992]]
|-
| Internal link to a "diff"
|<syntaxhighlight lang=mediawiki>
[[Special:Diff/2393992]]

[[Special:Diff/2390639/2393992]]
</syntaxhighlight>
The default (in the first example above) is to show the changes from the previous revision. 
See also the comments in the previous item.
|
[[Special:Diff/2393992]]

[[Special:Diff/2390639/2393992]]
|-
|Redirect
|<pre>#REDIRECT [[Main Page]]</pre>
Should be the first line on the page.
See {{ll|Help:Redirects}}
| [[File:Redirect arrow without text (cropped).svg]]&nbsp;[[Main Page]]

|}
</div>