Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 | This template is used in system messages, and on approximately 932,000 pages, or roughly 2% of all pages. Changes to it can cause immediate changes to the Wikipedia user interface. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Please discuss changes on the talk page before implementing them. |
 | This template uses TemplateStyles: |
Usage
{{block indent}} adds a block of indented text to a page.
{{block indent|1=The material to be indented here. May include markup, paragraph breaks, etc.}}
Alternatives that are not recommended
A colon at the start of the line produces a similar indent, but it produces incorrect HTML. See MOS:INDENT. (An initial : was intended only for use after ;, in constructing description lists, but most editors have used it almost everywhere for indenting.)
{{Blockquote}} is for actual quotations only. Using it for block indent is not correct semantic HTML, and the appearance differs. ({{Blockquote}} produces the HTML <blockquote>...</blockquote> element, which indicates a block quotation; {{block indent}} produces the HTML <div>...</div> element.)
The default display of {{block indent}} differs from that of {{Blockquote}} in that it does not:
- introduce whitespace margins above or below the indented material (just add a blank line above and/or below manually); nor
- indent from the right as well as the left (there is an optional parameter for this); nor
- affect the font size of its contents; nor
- (on mobile) bookend the block with large quotation marks; nor
- support plain blank-line paragraph breaks inside it; nor
- support attribution parameters (because {{block indent}} isn't for quotations).
{{Blockquote}} and {{block indent}} both support paragraph breaks using <p>...</p> around second and subsequent paragraphs, as well as other HTML markup, and it is always safest to explicitly format with HTML rather than rely on MediaWiki's parser to do the right thing, because the developers could alter its behavior at any time.
Example
{{block indent|1={{Lorem ipsum}}}}
produces:
Parameters
|1= a.k.a. |text= The material to be indented. It is always safest to explicitly define this with 1=, not as an unnamed parameter, because any occurrence (e.g. in a URL, template, etc.) of the = character will break the template without it.
|left= a.k.a. |em= the value (e.g. 0.1 or 7) in em units by which to indent the material from the left; defaults to 3
|right= the value, also in em, by which to indent the material from the right; defaults to 0 (use 7 to match the default left indentation)
|style= arbitrary CSS declarations, e.g. font-size: 95%;. This parameter should not normally be needed. Note: It already includes overflow: hidden; by default, to avoid collision of the div's background with floating elements.
|class= any CSS class names (e.g. as defined at MediaWiki:Common.css), comma-separated if more than one. This parameter should not normally be needed.
Comparison with {{Blockquote}} (block quotation)
| {{Block indent}} | {{Blockquote}} |
|---|---|
{{Lorem ipsum}}{{block indent|1={{Lorem ipsum}}{{Lorem ipsum}}}}{{Lorem ipsum}}
|
{{Lorem ipsum}}{{Blockquote|1={{Lorem ipsum}}{{Lorem ipsum}}}}{{Lorem ipsum}}
|
|
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. |
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. |
Technical issues with block templates
If the block-formatted content uses a named parameter (including |1=) and begins with a list (or any other wikimarkup that is dependent upon a specific markup character being at the beginning of a line), because MediaWiki behavior is to strip whitespace from named parameters, a <nowiki /> and a new line must exist before the list (or whatever) starts. This no longer affects unnamed parameters. Compare:
| code | result | |
|---|---|---|
| Works as intended | {{Block indent|
|
|
| FAIL | {{Block indent|1=
|
*Firstly, ...
|
| Works as intended | {{Block indent|1=<nowiki />
|
|
To embed a table in block markup like this, the block template's content parameter must be named or numbered and include the self-closing nowiki – as in |1=<nowiki /> – then every | character in the table markup must be escaped with {{!}}. An alternative is to use explicit HTML <table>, <tr>, <th>, and <td> markup.
See also
- {{indent}}, which indents a single line, after a newline, using a mixture of en- and em-sized spaces
- {{spaces}}, which indents a single line (or content inline in one) uses non-breaking spaces
- {{in5}}, which indents a single line (or content inline in one), skipping up to fifty equal en-sized spaces
- {{hanging indent}}, the block hanging indent template
- {{Blockquote}}, the block quotation template, which is only for quotations