Learning Commons:Student Orientation/Working With Content/Using the UBC Wiki/Using the Formatting Toolbar

From UBC Wiki

Formatting toolbar in Visual Editor

In Visual Editor, you can use the formatting toolbar to format pages.

visual editor bar

Using the Toolbar

The toolbar, which is located above the text box, will automatically format so that you do not have to remember Wiki mark up. If you hover your mouse above the icons it will show you what it does. Generally, you can either highlight the text you want the code applied to or click on the button and it will insert the code to tell you what to insert where. From left to right:

  • Undo and redo: Undo and Redo the changes you have made.
  • Heading pulldown: allows you to change how the paragraph is formatted. To change the style of a paragraph, put your cursor in the paragraph and select an item in this menu. See Help:Visual Editor#Headings pulldown menu for more.
  • Formatting: You can bold ,highlight, italicize the text See Help:Visual Editor#Formatting for more.
  • Linking: You can link a text to wiki page or external page from here. See Help:Links#Adding links in Visual Editor
  • Cite: You can cite your text from here.
  • List: You can add a bullet point or numbered list to your text. You can also increase or decrease indention.
  • Insert: You can insert different type of objects including media, table and math formula . See Help:Visual Editor#Insert for more details.
  • "Special character" (Ω) insertion: It inserts special character.
  • Help: It will redirect you to the Visual Editor Help page.
  • Page option menu: It allows you to add options such as , adding categories to your page.
  • Switch Editor: it will allow you to switch to source editing (wikitext) mode See Help:Visual_Editor to learn how to use the tools

Formating toolbar in Wikitext

In addition to using Wiki Markup to format pages on the UBC Wiki, you can use the formatting toolbar.

Using the Toolbar

The toolbar, which is located above the wikitext box‎, will insert wiki code for you so that you do not have to remember it. If you hover your mouse above the icons it will show you what it does. Generally, you can either highlight the text you want the code applied to or click on the button and it will insert the code and tell you what to insert where. From left to right:

A picture of the formatting toolbar, with the "advanced" options selected.

Main Menu

  • Bold selected text. See also Formatting
  • Italic selected text. See also Formatting
  • Links: Both internal to another wiki page and external to a non-UBC Wiki page. It is recommended to place the cursor in the desired location then insert link (without selecting any text). See also Links
  • Embed Files: adds the code for inserting a file (such as a picture) into the wiki page. See also Help:Adding Media
  • References: inserts the code for adding a footnote. See also Help:Footnotes_and_References
  • Signature and Timestamp: adds your username signature with the date and time (it will not display actual text in edit box, only in preview and after you save).

Advanced Menu

  • Header: Marks text as a section header. See Headers for more information.
  • List: Marks text as bulleted, numbered, or indented list item. See Lists for more information.
  • Size: Large or small text.
  • Baseline: Mark text as superscript or subscript. See Formatting for more information.
  • Insert picture gallery. See MediaWiki's Image Gallery help section for more information.
  • Insert table.
  • Insert new line.
  • Search and Replace: Just like any find and replace function.

Special Characteristics

The "Special Characteristics" drop down menu offers a wide variety of non-romanized letters and symbols that can be clicked to to be inserted into the wiki page.

Help

Clicking on the "Help" drop down menu brings up a quick reference guide on formatting code.

See Also