Text Formatting Rules

Summary

Misc: Blank lines between paragraphs. Headings: !/!!/!!!, ";;" for line break, "----" for a horizontal rule
Emphasis: two apostrophes for ''italics'', two underscores for __bold__
Lists: * for bullet lists, # for numbered lists, "; item : definition" for definition lists
Links: JoinCapitalizedWords to link to a page called 'Join Capitalized Words' (which may not yet exist). Use [brackets] for 'non-word' links [Work2004], web links [http://www.bbc.co.uk/education] or [named|SomePage] links
Preventing linking Prefix with "!": !DoNotLink, (for [ double up the "[")

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Paragraphs

• Leave a blank line between paragraphs
• Don't indent paragraphs
• Words wrap and fill as needed
• Four or more minus signs make a horizontal rule
• ;; makes a linebreak (in headings & lists too)
• %%% makes a linebreak & clears text wrapping

Lists

• asterisk for first level
  • asterisk-asterisk for second level, etc.
• Use * for bullet lists, # for numbered lists (mix at will)
• semicolon-term-colon-definition for definition lists:

term here

definition here, as in the <DL><DT><DD> list

• One line for each item
• Other leading whitespace signals preformatted text, changes font.

Headings

• '!' at the start of a line makes a large heading
• '!!' at the start of a line makes a medium heading
• '!!!' at the start of a line makes a small heading

Fonts

• Indent with one or more spaces to use a monospace font:

 This is in monospace

This is not

Indented Paragraphs

• semicolon-colon -- works like <BLOCKQUOTE>

this is an indented block of text

Emphasis

• Use doubled single-quotes ('') for emphasis (usually italics)
• Use doubled underscores (__) for strong emphasis (usually bold)
• Mix them at will: bold italics
• Emphasis can be used multiple times within a line, but cannot cross line boundaries:

''this will not work''

References

• Hyperlinks to other pages within the site are made by using Link Words (preferred) or placing the page name in square brackets: [NumbersNeedBrackets37]. Avoid all punctuation & spaces in page names (except _ and -).
• Choose page names with this in mind, eg 'Don'tKnow?' is a bad page name, 'NoIdea' is a better one. Try to keep page names short & precise, but specific enough that they won't overlap another page's content later. Choose names that will fit into (ie can link from) a variety of sentences easily, not just the one you're writing!
• Hyperlinks to external pages are done like this: http://www.wcsb.org/
• You can name the links by providing a name, a bar (|) and then the hyperlink or pagename: BBCi home page - the front page
• You can suppress linking to old-style references and URIs by preceding the word with a '!', e.g. NotLinkedAsLinkWord, http://not.linked.to/
• You can create footnotes by using [1], [2], [3], ... like this here ^[1]. See footnote for counterpart. (If the [ is in the first column, it is a footnote definition rather than a footnote reference ^[1].)
• Also, the old way of linking URL's is still supported: precede URLs with "http:", "ftp:" or "mailto:" to create links automatically as in: http://c2.com/
• URLs ending with .png, .gif, or .jpg are displayed as graphics if in square brackets: http://www.librarycampaign.com/images/owl.jpeg . Optionally, add ' left' or ' right' before the closing bracket to align the image.

Tables

• Simple tables are available. A table row is introduced by a | in the first column. It is best described by example:

      ||  __Name__               |v __Cost__   |v __Notes__
      | __First__   | __Last__
      |> Jeff       |< Dairiki   |^  Cheap     |< Not worth it
      |> Marco      |< Polo      | Cheaper     |< Not available

will generate

Name		Cost	Notes
First	Last
Jeff	Dairiki	Cheap	Not worth it
Marco	Polo	Cheaper	Not available

Note that multiple |'s lead to spanned columns, and v's can be used to span rows. A > generates a right justified column, < a left justified column and ^ a centered column (which is the default.)

HTML Mark-Up Language

• Don't bother
• < and > are themselves
• The & characters will not work
• If you really must use HTML, your system administrator can enable this feature. Start each line with a bar (|). Note that this feature is disabled by default.

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Footnotes:

[1]+ By using [1] a second time (in the first column) the footnote itself is defined. You may refer to a footnote as many times as you want, but you may only define it once on the page. Note the the [1] in the footnote links back to the first reference, if there are multiple references there will be +'s after the [1] which will link to the other references. (References which come after the footnote definition will not be linked to.)