Help:Links/Wikitext

Since source mode is significantly different than linking in either of Fandom's visual editors, it's useful to talk about linking through wikitext or linking in source mode separately. It's important to remember that many of the things below can only be done in source mode.

Internal links
An internal link is a link to any other page on the same wiki that you are currently editing. Attempting to create a link to the current page will fail. Instead, you'll just get bolded text.

Below we show a link to another page on this wiki:

and a link to the page we are on:

Displaying a link
The most basic kind of link is two square brackets  around the name of a page on the wiki.

If you wish, you can change the displayed text by using a pipe, the vertical line found on most English keyboards above the Enter key. Generally, the pipe delineates between the proper name of the article on the left, and the how you want to display that link on the right.

Common link types
Now that we know what a wikitext link is, let's look at the variety of ways in which it can be achieved.

Wikitext external links
Links to a page that's not on your wiki can be achieved by either using the "w:c: method" or by knowing the domain name of wikis that are in your wiki's interwiki map.

The w:c: method
Every wiki on Fandom can link to every other wiki by simply typing:

…and so on. Note that any valid domain for the wiki will work, so  is just as valid as.

Be careful that you link to a page that exists. A "w:c: link" always appears blue, even if there is no article of that name on that wiki. For instance, w:c:batman:Walt Disney World is a false blue link. When performing a "w:c: link", you should always click on it afterwards to make sure you're going to the intended page.

You can use a pipe to change the display text for a "w:c: link" just as you do for an on-wiki link.

Wikis in your interwiki map
If an external wiki is in your interwiki map, you can link to a page there by simply using.

By far, the most common wiki that uses this method is Wikipedia. Links there are achieved simply by typing. Another popular external wikis is mediawiki.org, which houses a ton of help pages our readers enjoy. Links there are as easy as

Using URLs
Although it's possible to create an internal link with a URL, you shouldn't. It's easier just to create a wiki-text link, and it makes wiki maintenance much easier if everyone is making internal links the same way.

When you need to link to a site that's not connected to Fandom, though, you have little choice but to make a URL link.

Here are some ways you can do that.

Pipe tricks
A pipe trick uses a pipe to automatically transform the way a link is displayed. On saving a pipe-tricked link, the software actually changes the way the link is made.

Its most basic form is to chop off a namespace from the front of a page name.

Imagine you're trying to create a link to Community Central:Admins and mods, but you don't want to show the words Community Central. Just add a single pipe at the end, and the software will do its thing.

When you go back to edit the text, you'll find that the pipe trick has resulted in the full form,.

Here are some other examples:

Slash tricks
A slash trick is related to the pipe trick, but it helps you quickly link to subpages from the main page. For instance, this page, Help:Links/Wikitext is a subpage of Help:Links. If you were on Help:Links, you could link here by typing:

If you wanted to get rid of the slash at the beginning, then you could type:

Since we're here at Help:Links/Wikitext, the use of a slash trick would refer to the subpages of this subpage:

Link suggestions
When editing in source mode, a link suggestion feature will suggest the names of existing pages and files based on what you type. This is helpful if you cannot remember a precise name to create a link.

When you start typing a " " or " " and then some text, a pop-up will suggest items. So, for example, if you type " " or  and then some text, it will suggest existing files or templates on your wiki that start with the letter S.

You can dismiss the link suggestions box by pressing the "Esc" key, and you can disable it entirely from the Editing tab of Special:Preferences by checking the "" option.

Linking to a category or image
When linking to a category for demonstrative purposes rather than for categorizing a page, or if you want to link to an image file page without the actual image showing, put a colon after the double opening square brackets, like this:  which will look like this: Category:Browse, and   will look like this: File:Site-logo.png.

Linking to a page section
If you want to link to a section of a page, make sure the page section is marked by a header. Then, at the end of your regular link, put a hash followed by the section name. For example, write  to generate: Help:Infoboxes. If you want to get link to section on currently viewing page, you can skip page name and start with hash symbol followed by section name, for example,  which will produce:  that links to this section. Clicking that kind of links wouldn't reload the page.

Linking from an image
If you want to link to a page from an image, add a parameter to the image which says. So, for example,  makes:

Changing the color of an individual link
If you want to change the color of one individual link (as opposed to every link on that wiki), you will need to use span tags and CSS on the pipe side of your link.

Using source mode, this means that if you were to, for example, make a link to Help:Contents green, you would write  which will look like:  Help:Contents.

Further help and feedback
de:Hilfe:Links/Wikitext fr:Aide:Liens/Wikitexte ja:ヘルプ:リンク/ウィキテキスト pl:Pomoc:Linki/Wikitekst pt:Ajuda:Wikitexto/exemplos de links ru:Справка:Ссылки/викитекст tr:Yardım:Bağlantılar/Wiki metin zh:Help:連結/wiki標記式語言