Help:Editing

Editing
With the exception of a few protected pages, every page has a link that says "edit", which lets you edit the page you are looking at. It is the most basic hitchwiki feature, and allows you to make corrections and add facts (e.g. hitchhiking spots) to articles.



Go to the sandbox and click the "edit" link. This will open an editing window containing the text for that page. Add something fun and interesting or whatever, then click Save page and see what you have done! Be careful to make sure that you are editing the sandbox page, and not the text of this tutorial.

Show preview
One important feature to start using now is the Show preview button. Try making an edit in the sandbox, then clicking the Show preview button instead of Save Page. This allows you to see what the page will look like after your edit, before you actually save. We all make mistakes; this feature lets you catch them. Using Show Preview before saving also lets you try format changes and other edits without cluttering up the page history. Do not forget to save your edits after previewing, though!



Summary
Before you hit Save page, it can be pretty useful to enter a polite explanation of your changes in the Summary box between the edit window and the Save page and Show preview buttons. It can be quite short; for example if you just enter "typo", people will know you made a spelling correction. Also, if the change you have made to the page is minor, such as correcting a spelling or grammar error, be sure to check the box "This is a minor edit" (this is only available if you have logged in).

Great! Now you can already add and edit information of existing articles! If you want to get deeper into the art of editing and formatting the hitchwiki, check the following article about formatting.

Click here to start the next tutorial about formatting articles.

''This article contains text from the Wikipedia article on Editing.