Help:Internet Explorer

Older versions of Internet Explorer (IE), especially versions 6 and 7 (commonly abbreviated IE6 and IE7) have limitations in their CSS and HTML support. As Wikipedia expands its use of CSS3 and HTML5, support for these old browsers will become more limited, leaving older browsers unable to render a page as the editors intend. A number of specialized fixes for these older browsers are being removed as the MediaWiki software is being updated.

Where possible, users should upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 or higher, or install another modern browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome. We understand that some users do not have a choice, either by limitations of their system, corporate policy, or compatibility with other software.

In some instances, your CSS can be edited (if you are logged in to Wikipedia with a username and password) to add some level of support.

JavaScript

As of September 2014, JavaScript has been disabled for IE6 and IE7.

• Issues: Without updates, IE6 and IE7 have increasing security issues which can lead to vulnerabilities.
• Usage: JavaScript is used extensively on Wikipedia
  • Custom JavaScript
  • Tabs on Preferences
  • Edit toolbar
  • CharInsert toolbar which adds symbols
• Fix: none; except upgrading to IE8 or higher or using a different browser.

Image and text spacing

For examples, see Help:Internet Explorer/IE space issue.

Where images and text are intermixed, large gaps may appear in the text.

• IE6 and IE7 do not properly handle image thumbs mixed with text.
• Fix: none; except upgrading to IE8 or higher or using a different browser.

column-width

The CSS3 column-width property specifies the width of columns.

• IE6, IE7, IE8, and IE9 will not show columns.
  • Issues: column-count, column-width and other associated column properties are only supported by IE10 and above
• Usage: {{reflist}} for references; {{div col}} for multiple columns
• Fix: None; except upgrading to IE10 or higher or using a different browser

<q>

<q>...</q> is used to mark a short quotation; CSS styles the content by placing it in quotation marks in a normal font style.

• IE6 and IE7 do not add the quotation marks, and also style the content in italics.
  • Issues:
    • The mediawiki.skinning.interface sets the CSS rule q{*font-style:italic}; this uses the star hack to style <q> in italics for IE7 and below
    • before and after pseudo-elements are not supported for IE7 and below
    • quotes is not supported as a property for IE7 and below
• Usage: <q> is used to format short works in Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2
• Fix: To change the style to normal:

q {font-style: normal}

Testing

Virtual machines with various versions of IE are available from Modern.IE.