Help:Edit toolbar

For the toolbar that shows under the edit window and allows the insertion of various characters and symbols, see Help:CharInsert.

In compatible browsers, an edit toolbar can be automatically displayed with the edit box, provided that this has been set in the preferences. It appears automatically for editors who are not logged in. This functions partly as a typing aid and partly as a reminder of the available functions. All the functions are available simply by typing the code directly into the edit box (such as [[link]]) – this may be easier.

The toolbar works with Internet Explorer, the Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey, Firefox, Konqueror, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome.

In Mozilla browsers, IE, and Chrome you can format existing text by highlighting the text you want to format and clicking the relevant button on the toolbar. If you click a button without selecting any text, sample text will be inserted at the cursor's position (like so: Bold text). In other browsers, clicking on the button presents an explanation for that feature. (Pre-release 9.0 versions of Opera browser also seem to support the advanced functionality.)

The Edit Toolbar has a different appearance depending on personal preferences set at Preferences → Editing:

Enable the editing toolbar	⧼wikieditor-toolbar-dialogs-preference⧽	Toolbar
Off	Off On	Standard toolbar
On	Off	Enhanced editing toolbar
	On	Enhanced editing toolbar with wizards

List of functions

Enhanced toolbar: main selections

Icon	Function	What it shows when editing	What it shows on the page
	Bold	'''Bold text'''	Bold text
	Italic	''Italic text''	Italic text
	External link	[http://www.example.com link title]	link title
	Internal link	[[Link title]]	Link title
	Insert image	[[File:Example.jpg|thumbnail]]
	Sign talk comments (with time stamp)	--~~~~	Username (talk) 21:16, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
	Insert a Footnotes	<ref>Insert footnote text here</ref>

Advanced selections

	Ignore wiki formatting	<nowiki>abc '''[[Bold text]]'''</nowiki>	abc '''[[Bold text]]'''
	Automatically redirect to another page	#REDIRECT [[abc]]	Preview a redirect page
	Standard line break	text before<br />abc	text before abc
	Superscript (math: index notation)	<sup>abc</sup>	other textabc
	Subscript (chemical formulas)	<sub>abc</sub>	other textabc
	Smaller text	<small>abc</small>	other textabc
	Picture gallery	<gallery> File:Abc.jpg File:Example.jpg </gallery>
	Insert table	{| class="wikitable" ! Name !! Description |- | [[Widget]] || ''Great'' thing |- | [[Gadget]] || Even '''better''' |}	Name Description Widget Great thing Gadget Even better

Icon	Function	Description
	Search and Replace	Search for strings of text and optionally replace them, progressing one at a time or replacing all occurrences at once. If the regular expressions check box is selected, then the targeted search term is interpreted as a symbolic "expression", called a "regular expression", which will act as a pattern to select targets for replacement. Any amount of text can be matched by a regular expression. Languages that use this type of regular expression include Perl, Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, .NET, and XML. A list of the regular expressions accepted by this search and replace box has been compiled for reference by the Mozilla Contributors.

See also

• Wikipedia:RefToolbar/2.0
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Toolbar (Firefox only)