View source for Help:Colon trick

{{For|the style guideline about using colon in articles|MOS:COLON}}
{{Wikipedia how-to|WP:COLON|WP:COLONTRICK|H::}}
{{Linking and page manipulation|linking and diffs}}
The '''colon trick''' is a method of providing a link to a [[Wikipedia:Category|category]], [[Help:Images|image]] or [[Help:Interwiki linking|interwiki link]] without adding the page to the category, displaying the image or adding the interwiki link to the [[Help:Interlanguage links|interlanguage links]]. It also allows for linking to pages with titles beginning with a recognized external link prefix, such as [[:http://]] or [[://Hus]].

By adding a [[Colon (punctuation)|colon]] just inside the opening double square brackets of the link, the default behaviour of the [[MediaWiki software]] will be bypassed. It will appear as a conventional [[Help:Link|wikilink]].

==Examples==
* <code><nowiki>[[Category:Help]]</nowiki></code> would list this page in Category:Help, but <code><nowiki>[[:Category:Help]]</nowiki></code> will produce a link to [[:Category:Help]].
* <code><nowiki>[[File:Wikipedia-logo.png]]</nowiki></code> would display an image, but <code><nowiki>[[:File:Wikipedia-logo.png]]</nowiki></code> will produce a link to [[:File:Wikipedia-logo.png]].
* <code><nowiki>[[pt:Internet]]</nowiki></code> will create an [[interlanguage link]], but <code><nowiki>[[:pt:Internet]]</nowiki></code> will produce an interwiki link to [[:pt:Internet]] (in the Portuguese Wikipedia).
* <code><nowiki>[[//Hus]]</nowiki></code> will produce an (invalid) external link wrapped in brackets ("[[//Hus]]"), but <code><nowiki>[[://Hus]]</nowiki></code> will produce a link to [[://Hus]].
* <code><nowiki>[[Computer]]</nowiki></code> links to the [[Computer]] article; adding a colon like <code><nowiki>[[:Computer]]</nowiki></code> can be done, but the colon is unneeded and makes no difference.

==With templates==
A colon can also be used to transclude a page in mainspace, rather than template space. For example, {{tlx|The Beatles}} will transclude [[Template:The Beatles]], but <samp><nowiki>{{</nowiki>[[The Beatles|:The&nbsp;Beatles]]}}</samp> will transclude the mainspace article [[The Beatles]]. This is useful when the mainspace article has been specially formatted to be transcluded in other articles, by using &lt;noinclude&gt; or &lt;includeonly&gt; tags to indicate the portion that should be included when the article is transcluded.

==With edit summaries==
Normally, linking to a [[Wikipedia:User pages|user page]] in an [[Help:Edit summary|edit summary]] sends a notification to the user. A colon can be used to escape this behaviour. For example, the edit summary "<code><nowiki>corrected&nbsp;typo&nbsp;by&nbsp;[[User:Example]]</nowiki></code>" will ping [[User:Example]], but "<code><nowiki>corrected&nbsp;typo&nbsp;by&nbsp;[[:User:Example]]</nowiki></code>" will not.

{{Wikipedia technical help|collapsed}}
[[Category:Wikipedia link help|Colon trick]]