User:Rochefoucauld/Formatting

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

Text Case
Change text case with uc (upper case), lc (lower case), small-caps and capitalize. While it is OK to omit the use of the upper case, lower case, and capitalize templates altogether, where they are used they should only be inserted where the choice of case in the work is a formatting decision (ex. special formatting in a work's title), rather than as required for spelling or grammar (ex. in an acronym).

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, use the colon before the block. For more control, 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

The m-dash, with the appropriate hair spaces surrounding it, can be entered using —. The spaces do not always appear correctly however, so use with caution. 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 desireable to replicate the long s in older works, templates long s or ls and long S or lS are available. Note these templates now require the addition of some lines to your CSS or Javascript pages to display. For the descending f,, use f. 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.

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

For breaking up discontinuous runs of pages, for example when seperating blocks of transluded 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


Multiple Columns

 * 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 properies 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.

Letter Spacing
This template simplifies formatting text that has.

There is a shorthand named sp that only takes one parameter and always uses the spacing .15em.

Examples
produces:

produces:

Table Kludge
margin-right:auto !important; margin-left:auto !important; See: Here