Help:Templates

Templates are shortcuts placed within sets of double curly brackets to perform various functions throughout Wikisource. As you proofread and edit texts in Wikisource, you can use templates to aid in formatting, navigation, and a variety of other tasks.

Formatting Templates
Formatting templates are used to change the way that text displays when being read.

Text Case
The case of text can be changed with uc (upper case), lc (lower case), small-caps, all small caps and capitalize.

These templates apply a text transform style, but do not fundamentally change the text. This means that when you copy-paste, export as plain text, or view in an app or device without certain style capabilities, you will see the original text. Therefore, the text use should still be grammatically correct. For example:
 * is wrong, but is correct (both appear the same: "")
 * is wrong, but is correct (both appear as "LONDON")

The use of uc, lc and capitalize is optional and you can also use the equivalent plain text. For example, and   are both acceptable.

Indenting and Alignment
Text is by default aligned left, but where it is required to manually align text to the left, use left. To float a block of text to the left without affecting text alignment within the block, use float left or block left.

To align text to the right, use right. To float a block of text to the right without affecting text alignment within the block, use float right or block right.

To center text, use center (or c). To float a block of text to the center without affecting text alignment within the block, use block center.

To indent the first line of a paragraph, the template text-indent is available. Use nodent to "un-indent" a paragraph within the block. Note replicating indented paragraphs is typically not done in works transcribed here, and paragraphs are separated by a blank line.

To indent every line of a paragraph except the first, use hanging indent (or hi) or outdent. To indent a block of text left, the template left margin is available. Template dent combines the functionality of left margin, text-indent and hi

To insert a fixed gap in text, use gap

Character formatting
To drop the initial character of a paragraph, use dropinitial. To replicate a large initial character that does not descend into the paragraph, use largeinitial

To replicate a inline straight line (usually indicating missing or redacted text) use bar as multiple m-dashes sometimes render as a dashed line.

To create a large brace spanning multiple lines of text, use brace or brace2. "brace" is limited to use with or in a table, "brace2" may be used anywhere.

Some works, especially older ones, use ligatures, diacritics, and alternate letterforms. Whether or not to transcribe this formatting is left up to the transcriber. These characters may be hard coded, or entered with templates. Where it is desirable to replicate the long s in older works, templates long s or ls are available. Note these templates now require the addition of some lines to your CSS or Javascript pages to display. Ligatures of various letter combinations can be found in Category:Ligature templates. Templates to assist in the entering of diacritics can be found in Category:Diacritic templates

Templates ', ( and ) allow for the insertion of the special characters ', $($, and $)$ where it would otherwise be difficult or impossible due to wikimarkup.

Display of Greek quotes, etc. can be improved with the use of polytonic.

Roman Numerals
In the interest of data quality Roman-to-arabic is available to facilitate entering metadata like publication date from the original page; it eases proofreading, allowing comparison of page and text directly—also allows conversion algorithm to be audited by automated testing.

Separations
Use rule in preference of "" for the creation of horizontal lines spanning the page. In addition, rule can create horizontal separators of any length. For more fancy lines, custom rule is available.

For breaking up discontinuous runs of pages, for example when separating blocks of transcluded front and end matter (ex. Title Page, Dedication, Contents) to one page, use page break

General formatting
Text can be colored using the greyed and red templates. Red text was often used as a highlight in older works, especially on the title page. Greyed text can be used to indicate (important) text that has been written or typed onto the original document. RunningHeader or rh creates a left justified, a centered, and a right justified block of text all on the same line, and is most often used in the Page namespace, in the header field to replicate page headers. gap is used wherever a gap of greater than one space is required.

Column formatting



 * multicol, multicol-break, multicol-section, multicol-end, this template uses a table to create multiple columns of text. You need to place the breaks explicitly, but they will never move.
 * div col, div col end, which uses CSS3 properties to create columns dynamically. The reader's browser will choose where best to put the breaks, so the layout cannot be guaranteed not to change. This one is good for lists, as you don't need to worry about placing multicol-breaks.

Navigation Templates
 Navigation templates are used to help a reader navigate through or between texts. 

Proofreading templates
Proofreading templates are used during proofreading to manage the process of transclusion to the main namespace.

Image templates
XXX: the above are just image maintenance templates; should include actual image templates too ...

Article-specific templates
Some templates are designed for specific articles in Wikisource. They can be found in Category:Specific article templates.

Housekeeping templates
Some templates are not designed for "inline" use in a work, but are used to keep track of things that need to be fixed or indicate the applicable licensing. Please see the following pages for these templates:


 * Help:Copyright tags
 * Help:Maintenance tags

User talk pages
See User warning templates

Unblock requests
 
 * Unblock
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