Help:Text formatting

Paragraphs[edit]

Paragraphs are separated by a single blank line.

Markup	Renders as
HyperText Markup Language HyperText Markup Language	HyperText Markup Language HyperText Markup Language

Bold[edit]

Bold text is stylistically offset from other text without conveying extra importance. The most common use of boldface is to highlight the article title, and often synonyms, in the lead section. Do not use bold text for emphasis.

Use ''' to open and close bold text.

Markup	Renders as
'''HyperText Markup Language'''	HyperText Markup Language

Strong[edit]

Italic[edit]

Italic type (text like this) should be used for certain names and titles, including court case names, named vehicles, and works of art and artifice.

Use '' to open and close italic text.

Markup	Renders as
The ''Iliad''	The Iliad

Emphasis[edit]

Font size[edit]

Use the template {{ small | ... }} to switch to a font smaller than the current font.

Use the template {{ big | ... }} to increase font to a larger size than the current font.

Text inside “big” will {{big\| display in an }} {{big\| enlarged }} font.		Text inside “big” display in an enlarged font.

Without size-formatting, the text displays in the current default font.		Without size-formatting, the text displays in current default font.

Text inside “small” {{small\| display in a }} {{small\| reduced-size }} font.		This text will display in a reduced-size font.

Note that the current default size depends on context and enclosing formatting: For example, footnotes and references default to displayed in a slightly smaller-than-usual font, and headings (of various levels) default to displaying in a slightly larger font.

Template {{small| ... }} is a substitute for HTML <small>...</small>.

Template {{big| ... }} is a substitute for HTML <big>...</big>.

Font style[edit]

Teletype or typewriter fonts

- {{tt| ... }} is a substitute for <tt>...</tt> in HTML.
- {{code| ... }} adds shading on top of the typewriter font.

Serif fonts

- {{math| ... }} displays text in the serif font used by TeX for rendering text generated from input embedded in <math>...</math>. TeX is the math typesetting software (mostly) installed on the wikipedia.

Even if you don't edit math, the math font can be used to greatly improve the legibility of Greek text which us non-Greeks find hard to read in san-serif, with all the little shapely clues removed. Compare the typewriter,

math

, and default san-serif fonts, below:

{{math\| Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα }}		(example how to use the math font template)
$Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα$		(result of line above. Nice, isn't it?)
Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα		(default, sans-serif font – even worse than the typewriter font, above, in the first line)

{{mvar| ... }} displays text in the $italic serif$ font used for rendering variables in text explaining a mathematical equation, etc. It's just a short-cut combination of italic and the $math$ font. It's used a lot in math, since all usual variables|math variables are italic and $serif$ $both$ . For folks not conversant with mathematical typesetting rules, it probably seems like fluff, even though for us inside mathematics, the ubiquitous use of an $italic serif font$ for most (but not all) single-letter symbols makes it a huge time-saver.