Wikipedia:Extended image syntax

This editing guideline documents the syntax used to insert pictures and other media files into Wikipedia pages. The same syntax is used regardless of whether a file is from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. New editors are encouraged to also see the picture tutorial and the simple guide for beginners.

Brief syntax
In brief, the syntax for displaying an image is:

means you always type exactly what you see. represent a variable, which you replace with its actual value.

Of the parameters shown, only Name is essential. Most images should use  and not specify a size.

The other details:
 * are optional and
 * can be placed in any order, except for Caption.


 * Type :  (or  ; either can be followed by  ),   (or  ), or  . Displays the image with specific formatting (see below).
 * Border : . Put a small border around the image.
 * Location :,  ,   or  . Determine the horizontal placement of the image on the page. This defaults to   for thumbnails and framed images.
 * Alignment :,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , or  . Vertically align the image with respect to adjacent text. This defaults to.
 * Size :  or  . Scale a thumbnail from its default size by the given factor (default 0.75), rounding the result to the nearest multiple of 10 pixels. The   option must be used along with the   or   parameter. Alternatively, and only where absolutely necessary, users' preferences may be disregarded and the size of the image fixed by specifying a size in pixels:   or   or  . Scale the image to be no greater than the given width or height, keeping its aspect ratio. Scaling up (i.e. stretching the image to a greater size) is disabled when the image is framed.
 * Link : Link the image to a different resource, or to nothing.
 * Alt : Specify the alt text for the image. This is intended for visually impaired readers. See WP:ALT for how this should typically differ from the caption.
 * Page: Specify a page other than 1 to use for the thumbnail image in multipaged files.
 * Langtag : Specify the IETF language tag (slang: langtag) for -translated SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files. Some SVG files are multilingual; this parameter specifies which language to use. The langtag should be all lowercase (e.g.,   rather than  ). Defaults to current Wikipedia language in article namespace or   in other namespaces. See Translate.
 * Caption : Not a keyword, the actual caption text. Must be last option. This is visible if the  attribute is used, but may be displayed on mouseover in other cases.

Detailed syntax
The image syntax begins with, contains components separated by  , and ends with. The  and the first   (or, if there is no , the terminating  ) must be on the same line; other spaces and line breaks  (or ) are ignored if they are next to   characters or just inside the brackets. Spaces or line breaks are not allowed just before the  in the following options, and may have undesirable side effects if they appear just after the.

Do not terminate with the code ; this will be taken as an empty caption and override any real caption before it.

Type
One of these options may be specified to control whether or not the image is scaled and/or given a border. For options that automatically scale the image, it's usually to 220px; logged-in users can modify this (at "Thumbnail size" under ). This is important to users with (e.g.) limited vision. If this is too large or small the upright attribute can be used. Specifying a fixed size in pixels overrides all of this, but is unfriendly to users who need a larger image.
 * (or  ) : Automatically scale the image, and put a box around it. Show a caption if specified. Float the image on the right unless overridden with the location attribute. With an operand, e.g., the operand names an image that is used as the thumbnail, ignoring any size specification.
 * : Preserve the original image size, and put a box around the image. Show any caption below the image. Float the image on the right unless overridden with the location attribute. Note: Any size options specified will be ignored and flagged as a 'bogus file option' by the Linter.
 * : Automatically scale the image up or down. Place it inline with the text unless overridden with the location attribute.
 * Nothing specified : Preserve the original image size, and do not add a border around the image. Do not show a caption. If no alt text is specifically requested, use the requested caption as alt text. This option is almost exclusively used in templates.

Border

 * : Generate a one-pixel border around the image. This has an effect only around unframed images (those without thumb and frame), as framed images always have borders.

Location
One of these options may be specified to control the position of the image. For examples of how all this works, see Examples of location parameter.
 * : Place the image on the right side of the page. The article text that follows the image flows around the image. This is the default when  or   is used.
 * : Place the image on the left side of the page. The article text that follows the image flows around the image, but there may be formatting issues with lists and indented text (see ).
 * : Place the image in the center of the page. The article text that follows the image is placed below the image.
 * : Place the image on the left side of the page. The article text that follows the image is placed below the image.
 * Nothing specified, and neither  nor   : The image is placed inline with the text, Face-smile.svg like this.

Vertical alignment
One of these options may optionally be specified to control the vertical alignment of the image with respect to adjacent text.

These vertical alignment options apply only to plain images, which do not cause breaks and are not floated (that is, they do not work with images that need text to flow around them. To make text flow around an image, place the image preceding the text and use the  parameter).

In the following list, each option's explanation is preceded by what File:Flag of Hungary vertical.svg looks like when aligned using the listed option, using the markup

of









This is often a bit higher than the top of a capital letter, because of ascenders in letters like lower-case "h".

This is somewhat lower than the baseline, because of descenders in letters like lower-case "y".

Normally this is slightly higher than the top of the text, to make space between lines of text.

Normally this is slightly lower than the bottom of the text.

Size
Any or none of these options may be specified to control the size of the image. In the case of images with captions, if the image is already smaller than the requested size, then the image retains its original size (it is not enlarged). In the case of images without captions, the image will be enlarged or reduced to match the requested size. Sizing is disabled when the type 'frame' is use, with the size options being flagged as a bogus file option at Special:LintErrors.

The default thumbnail width can be set in the preferences, so specifying in px is not recommended in order to respect the users' preferences, which may be important for accessibility. Exceptions can, of course, be made, but do try to use  or the default if possible.


 * (nothing specified) : For thumbnails, use the size specified in preferences for logged in users, and use a size determined by resolution for users who are not logged in. For non-thumbnails, use the native size of the image.
 * or factor : Adjust a thumbnail's size to factor times the default thumbnail size, rounding the result to the nearest multiple of 10. For instance,   makes the image larger, which is useful for maps or schematics that need to be larger to be readable. The parameter   returns the same size as thumbnail width, and   is functionally identical to   alone. If you set Factor equal to the image's aspect ratio (width divided by height) the result is equivalent to scaling the height to be equal to the normal thumbnail width.
 * The  option only works with the   or   parameter (see Type).


 * Width : (E.g.  ) Scale the image to make it the specified number of pixels in width, and scale the height to retain the original aspect ratio.
 * Height : (E.g.,  ) Scale the image to make it the specified number of pixels in height, and scale the width to retain the original aspect ratio.
 * Width Height : (E.g.  ) Scale the image to be no wider and no higher than the specified number of pixels. The image will keep its original aspect ratio.

Link

 * Page : Ordinarily, clicking on an image takes the reader to the image description page. The link option allows the reader to be taken instead to a different page, such as a fuller image from which the thumbnail was cropped, or to a full document of which the thumbnail was a single page (or crop of a single page). Do not enclose the page name in square brackets. If Page is a URL, the reader will be taken outside the project; this is not normally done in article space.
 * link (alone): Disables the link so that clicking on the image does nothing.

link affects only what happens when the image itself is clicked; thumb images carry a little rectangle-rectangle icon in the caption area, and clicking that always leads to the image description page. Except for public-domain images, it must always be possible for the reader to reach the image-description page, so link should be used only with thumb images.

link cannot be used with frame.

To disable all linking from, and description of, a purely decorative image – so that it's ignored by screen readers – use "linkalt" with no arguments for either parameter.

Alt text and caption
Zero or more of these options may be specified to control the alt text, link title, and caption for the image. Captions may contain embedded wiki markup, such as links or formatting. See Captions for discussion of appropriate caption text. See Alternative text for images for discussion of appropriate alt text. Internet Explorer displays the link title as a tooltip but other browsers may not.

Hint: to force the caption to be written (underneath the picture) and not just appear as "hover text" even when you wish to resize the image, specify " ". If you specify " " the caption does appear but any resizing (such as " ") is ignored.


 * Alt: Use Alt as the alt text for the image.
 * Caption: (the last option that is not recognised as some other part of the image syntax): How this text is used depends on the image type. When the type has a visible caption (" ", " ", " " or " ") then this text appears as a caption below the image. Otherwise, (if the image type is unspecified or is " "), this text is used for the link title provided the link has not been suppressed with " ", and also for the alt text provided an explicit Alt has not been supplied.

The actual alt text for the displayed image will be one of the following, in order of preference:
 * 1) The explicitly requested Alt, if any;
 * 2) The explicitly requested Caption, if the image type has no visible caption;
 * 3) The empty string, if there is an explicitly requested Caption and the image type has a visible caption.
 * 4) The image file name if there is no explicitly requested Alt or Caption. This is never a satisfactory option.

It is possible to specify the link title text only for images with no visible caption (as described above). However, as not all browsers display this text, and it is ignored by screen readers, there is little point.

Note:  is supported only for images. Audio and video files should use timed text.

Class

 * : Used to insert any HTML classes for image. This has an effect only for some specific classes listed in Catalogue of CSS classes, or some classes produced by TemplateStyles.
 * The special class  will exclude the image from being selected by the Page Images algorithm.(T301588)
 * will cause the image's colors to be inverted in dark mode.  will only invert the image and not the caption.

Page
Normally page 1 from a PDF or DjVu file is used to generate the thumbnail. A different page can be used with the parameter page: :

Using the basic syntax
The most basic example uses the syntax. This does not scale the image or allow text to wrap around it. This is not normally appropriate in an article.



This is rendered inline, and the specified text is used as the image's alt attribute (alternate text for programs which cannot display images, such as screen readers) and as the title attribute (supplementary text, often displayed as a tooltip when the mouse is over the image). See Captions for discussion of appropriate caption text. See Alternative text for images for discussion of appropriate alt text.

Above, the image of the Thames was put into its own paragraph. This isn't mandatory; images can sit inline in text, as shown below.

gives

text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text

Keeping the original size, with a caption
To display an image as uploaded with a caption use.



Aligning thumbnails to fit into text


This is the style most familiar to readers. As shown on in the example image, the image is framed, is an appropriate size, and has text able to wrap around it. A caption is properly integrated.

The important part of this is the  parameter:   (as shown in the left). For details of these options, see previous sections.

Examples of the location parameter are below:

The many-floating-objects problem
There is a floating issue in HTML/CSS that prevents certain images (or other floating objects) from floating above others. It occurs only if: The first floating object on the latter side of the page won't float above the last floating object on the former (see examples below). Solutions include alternating between left and right in aligning images or other floating objects (not shown); setting to "none" the alignment of the one that won't float above the others (as demonstrated "live" on the population table here); and using a gallery tag for large numbers of images in a single section. Per MOS:ACCESS, images should be inserted so their markup is in the correct section, even if that can cause them to float into the next section.
 * there are multiple floating objects on one side of the page
 * the floating object on the other side of the page comes after the other ones in the source code

Problematic code:

Using "upright"
The  option works in combination with the   or   option to resize an image to about 75% of the width of a plain. This is useful for displaying images in "portrait" orientation, since such tall and narrow images tend to look too large when scaled to the same width as "landscape" oriented images. The  option scales larger or smaller in step with user screen resolution. The relative size can be determined with a multiplier such as. If x=1 then the image is standard thumbnail width. E.g., (shown on the left) and  " option]] (shown on the right).

Using frame
With this option, the embedded image is shown with its actual size enclosed by a frame, regardless of the "thumb" or "size" attribute, and the caption, if any, is visible in the frame. Without the options,  , and  , the image is normally on the right:. With none of the options other than  and , an embedded image is rendered inline.

Using alignment "none" thumbnails in tables
The option  can be used to have thumbnails without left- or right-alignment. This is probably most useful for tables. This is an example:

Formatting and links in captions


You can put links in the caption text, as demonstrated in this image:

Just make sure the number of opening and closing square brackets are right. One extra or missing would mean the entire image syntax line would not work.



Additional caption formatting options are possible; all normal formatting should just work.

Interaction between left-floating images and lists
List bullets and numbers can sometimes overlap left-floating images, and indented lines may not appear correctly when next to left-floating images. For example:

The flowlist template enables lists to stay clear of these left-floating objects: Renders as:

 list item A1      list item B1 list item B2 continuing list item A1    list item A2 



First line
 * Second line
 * Third line
 * Fourth line

This method will not work inside of a table, and if your list is longer than the floated element, then the list will not flow around the image like normal, but instead be one block, leaving white space below the floated element.

Overlaying annotations on an image
In some cases, it may be desirable to add clickable annotations to an image. The templates Template:Annotated image and Template:Annotated image 4 exist for this purpose.

These templates allow wikitext (e.g., regular text, wikilinks, allowed HTML code, references, and other templates) to be included on the image itself. They may also be used to crop an image so as to focus on a particular portion of it, or alternatively, expand the white area around an image for better placement of wikitext.

There is also the template Overlay:

Only item 7 is linked here.

Superimposing images
Images can be overlaid or superimposed using Superimpose, Superimpose2 or Overlaid images.

Cropping images
Images can be cropped using CSS image crop or Annotated image.

Cancelling floating-around-image mode
After having had an image floating next to text, putting further text below it and again using the full width can be done with the following markup. This blocks an image from appearing next to the material following this markup, possibly due to aesthetic reasons or a change in topics.

This can be issued by using template clear or Clr or - in certain namespaces ( en, meta ).

VR images
To display VR photographs (aka 360-degree panoramas or photospheres), use PanoViewer.

Linking to the image without displaying it
If you don't want to show or display the image but rather just want to make a link to the description page for an image, use a leading colon before "File:" in an intra-wiki link, like this:  which yields: STS-32 crew.

Sound files
Often, sound files are presented on Wikipedia pages using Listen or its related templates. However, it is also possible to present an audio file without using any template. Similar syntax to images can be used to transclude audio or video files into pages.

Note that none of these examples provide links to Media help, and example 2 provides no navigable links to the file itself. Consequently, whenever this method is used, the Inline audio template must be shown on that page, and the presentation of the play buttons must be accompanied by clickable links to the sound file itself. Examples:

Note that vertical alignment of the play button does not work, nor is it possible to present the play button inline with text; consequently, the most pleasing arrangement is achieved with examples 1 or 3.

There is also a parameter to preset the player to start at a time other than 0:00.

MIDI
Since June 2019, MIDI files can be played just like other sound files. See: Help:Score.



Video files
To display a video as uploaded with a caption use.



Initial still image
" ". Use the frame from the video at the given time as the initial still image. Time is either a number of seconds, or hours, minutes and seconds separated by colons. Without a thumbtime parameter, a frame from the midpoint of the video is used by default. For instance, using the same video file as previously:

Temporal media fragments
This syntax allows you to play a segment of the video stream or set a start time. Hover over the player to see start time listed as 5s, press play and notice it stops playback at 7 seconds.

Note: This is not yet supported by Safari and Internet Explorer.

Displaying small videos larger
To display a video larger than its uploaded size use " " and " ". This may be useful if the original video is very small but shows some important but small detail, but note that upscaling may create unexpected scaling artifacts. For example, the code


 * displays the 16 pixels wide video at its original size on the left and eight times wider at the right (the squares should be all black or all white and the edges should be sharp — any blurriness or off-white colour is likely due to the browser or the Wikimedia server rendering):

Thumbtime in a gallery
The thumbtime parameter can also be used inside a gallery (either with &#60;gallery> tags or the Gallery template):