Help:VisualEditor

The VisualEditor in action

The VisualEditor on mobile

The VisualEditor feature allows users to edit an article quickly and easily. The editing interface will always reflect how the article will look when published.

Unless you have set your preferences to use the source editor, clicking "Edit" on an article will open the VisualEditor. The VisualEditor turns the page itself into the editor area, rather than load in a separate page. Once loaded, the editing toolbar appears at the top of the article space, and the cursor appears at the beginning of the text.

Making an edit

Once the editor is open, you can begin writing and modifying the text immediately. The toolbar allows for text modifications like bold, italics, underline, text alignment, and lists. More formatting options are in the dropdown on the far left, allowing the user to switch between regular paragraphs, headings, blockquotes, or preformatted text. The "T" dropdown has yet more specific formatting options such as strikethrough, code blocks, font-size controls, superscript and subscript, etc.

VisualEditor tools

Your browser's spell check function will be used as you enter text; this is most often shown as red underlining on misspelled words.

It's strongly recommended that you add notes in the "describe what you changed" field at the bottom of an editor before clicking "Save", as this will help other editors to figure out what you are attempting to do. You can also hit "Show changes" for a wikitext difference of your changes before saving.

Creating a link

Link creation dialogue box

The toolbar also has the link tool (the chain link icon) that's used to link words or phrases to other pages on the same FANDOM site. To create a link, either:

• Click the link button without selecting any text - you can then type in the intended destination in the tool, and this will be used as the link text.
• Insert 2 square brackets [[, then type in the intended destination in the tool.
• Highlight some text then click the link button - this will keep the highlighted text, but you can point the link itself at a different destination.

If the destination article already exists on Fandom, you can simply start typing the name of the page and a list of suggestions will appear. When you're done, simply hit enter or click elsewhere on the screen to dismiss the dialog. Click the linked text to access the dialog again for further changes.

• Using the shortcut CMD+K (Mac)/CTRL+K (Windows) to open the tool.

Hovering over existing links will allow you to edit the display text or modify the link.

Adding elements

Citations, media, and other advanced elements can be added to a page via the editor tools. The "Cite" icon, shaped like a book, allows references to be added to an article, whereas the "Image" icon allows for images and videos to be searched for and added to pages. You can also upload images this way, or via the "mass upload" icon.

Video manipulation dialogue box

Once added, clicking any of these elements will generate an "edit" dialogue box wherein they may be manipulated. Images and videos can be positioned, captions or alt text added, borders around them controlled, and more. Citations can have their contents modified or added to groups.

For more control over the position and formatting of images, see Help:Wikitext#Image formatting.

Insert

The "insert" dropdown allows for the addition of more advanced objects to an article:

• Infobox — Displays a list of Portable Infoboxes, which the user may insert into the article. There is also a link to make a brand new infobox.
• Template — Allows the user to search through the entire template namespace for one to insert into a page.
• Table — Adds a basic table that can be manipulated.
• Comment — Adds a note visible only to other editors.
• Other options:
  • Chemical formulae
  • Mathematical formulae
  • Galleries
  • Code blocks
  • Signatures
  • A reference list for citations.

Article options

Options dialogue box

The gear icon on the far right of the toolbar has a list of opens that open different panes in the options dialogue box. Here, you can manipulate article categories, manipulate the table of contents and redirects, control the interlanguage links, view the templates used on the article, and more.

One of the last few tools available are the find and replace tool, which can be opened from the options dropdown or via the CMD+F (Mac)/CTRL+F (Windows) command. In the very far left of the editor, there are also helpful links to Special:WhatLinksHere, Special:RecentChangesLinked, Special:SpecialPages, and another link to upload files.

Switching to source editor

Linked prominently at the very top of the article, under the "edit page" text, is a dropdown where you can find keyboard shortcuts, read an advanced user guide, and switch to source editor. Source editor allows you to view the underlying wikitext at work in the article.

Next steps

• Learn how to create a new article.

Further help and feedback

• Browse and search other help pages at Help:Contents
• Check Fandom Community Central for sources of further help and support
• Check Contacting Fandom for how to report any errors or unclear steps in this article