Help:Link color

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{{hatnote|This page is for technical help on coloring links in articles, for technical help on color use in articles in general, see Help:Using colors. For the MOS guideline on color use in articles, see MOS:COLOR. For color tables and a color pallette, see MOS:COLORS. For the WikiProject, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Color. For the civility essay dealing with colors, see Wikipedia:Don't edit war over the color of templates.}}

{{Wikipedia how-to|shortcut1=H:LC|shortcut2=WP:LINKCOLOR}}

{{Warning link color}}

{{Linking and page manipulation|linking and diffs}}

In Wikipedia, the color of a link shows the status of the corresponding target page. The default colors (in the default skin Vector 2022) have the meanings shown in the table below. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Colors.

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Standard colors

{{anchor|blue link|blue ink}}

class="wikitable plainrowheaders"

|+Standard link colors, in Vector 2022 and other skins

scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:12%" | Link color

! scope="col" rowspan="2" | Type

! scope="col" colspan="2" | Vector 2022

! scope="col" colspan="2" | Other skins

scope="col" style="width:12%" | Color code

! scope="col" | Color

! scope="col" style="width:12%" | Color code

! scope="col" | Color

blue link (Vector 2022)
blue link (other skins)

| Link to a Wikipedia page that currently exists, but you never visited

#3366CC = rgb(51,102,204)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#3366CC}}#0645AD = rgb(6,69,173)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#0645AD}}
purple link (Vector 2022)
indigo link (other skins)

| Link to a Wikipedia page that exists and that you have visited

#795CB2 = rgb(121,92,178)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#795CB2}}#0B0080 = rgb(11,0,128)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#0B0080}}
red link (Vector 2022)
red link (other skins)

| Link to a Wikipedia page that does not currently exist, and you never visited

#BF3C2D = rgb(191,60,45)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#BF3C2D}}#BA0000 = rgb(186,0,0)style="text-align:center;"style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#BA0000}}
light maroon link

| Link to a Wikipedia page that does not currently exist, but that you have visited

#A55858 = rgb(165,88,88)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#A55858}}#A55858 = rgb(165,88,88)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#A55858}}
maroon link

| Link to a very short article/stub within Wikipedia, but only if the user has set a preference option to format links to stubs in this way

colspan=2 {{n/a|not yet defined}}#772233 = rgb(119,34,51)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#772233}}
blue link (Vector 2022)
light blue link 1 (other skins)
light blue link 2 (other skins)

| {{anchor|light blue link}}Link to a page at another wiki, usually another Wikimedia project or an external link.
Note that the light blue color is used whether or not the page actually exists at the target wiki. For example, there is an article about George Washington Carver here on the English Wikipedia, while there is no article of the same name on the Japanese Wikipedia; but they do have an article about the same man under a different title.

#3366CC = rgb(51,102,204)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#3366CC}}#3366BB = rgb(51,102,187)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#3366BB}}
purple link (Vector 2022)
purple link (other skins)

| Link to a page on another site that has been visited

#795CB2 = rgb(121,92,178)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#795CB2}}#663366 = rgb(102,51,102)style="text-align:center;"| {{color box|#663366}}

Note that the colors in the boxes may appear darker than text of the same color; also, larger or bold text will tend to look darker. Furthermore, the actual color seen by a user will vary slightly according to their operating system, desktop settings, and browser, as well as their monitor and for low-end LCDs, viewing angle. Logged-in users can also change the colors they see by selecting a different skin or using custom CSS.

Custom colors

{{see|Help:Using colours}}

To use named CSS colors for text on a white background, refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/CSS colors for text on white for recommended colors.

=Normal text=

{{see|Template:Color}}

For normal text, the {{tl|color}} template with two parameters can be used: the color, either by name or hex code, and some text. However, prose text intended for readers should never be manually colored. (MOS:PROSECOLOR)

  • {{tlc|color|orange|Hello, world!}} → {{color|orange|Hello, world!}}
  • {{tlc|color|#00F000|Hello, world!}} → {{color|#00F000|Hello, world!}}

=Links=

Refrain from implementing colored links that may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text, or color links for purely aesthetic reasons. (MOS:COLOR)

==Redirect==

Show redirects as green links:

.mw-body-content a.mw-redirect {color:#308050}

.mw-body-content a.mw-redirect:visited {color:#3070A0}

==External==

Show external links as green links:

.mw-body-content a.external {color: #008000}

.mw-body-content a.external:visited {color: #008000}

==Text decoration==

This allows formatting such as underlines. For example:

.mw-body-content a:link {color: #000000; text-decoration: underline; }

Possible values are:

  • none
  • underline
  • overline
  • line-through

==Font family==

This will change the link font:

.mw-body-content a:link {font-family: monospace}

==Preferences==

The "display links to disambiguation pages in orange" feature, located in the gadgets tab of the preferences menu (under the "appearance" section), shows you all links to disambiguation pages in {{color|#ff8921|orange}}.

==Scripts==

User:Anomie/linkclassifier is a popular script that customizes colors to indicate links such as pages to be deleted, nonfree-media, redirects, protected pages and more.

See also

{{Help desk}}

{{Portal|Help}}

  • {{tl|resize}}
  • {{tl|background color}}
  • {{tl|font color}} – allows setting both text and background color
  • {{tl|coltit}} – colored table header cell
  • {{tl|fake link}}

{{Web Colors}}

{{Help navigation}}

{{Wikipedia technical help|collapsed}}

Category:Wikipedia link help