Links should clearly be identifiable as links to readers. Refrain from implementing colored links that may impede user ability to distinguish links from regular text, or color links for purely aesthetic reasons. See the guides to editing articles for accessibility at contrast and navbox colors.

This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcuts H:LC WP:LINKCOLOR

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

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.

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

For normal text, the ((color)) template with two parameters can be used; name of color or hex code of color and text. However, prose text intended for readers should never be manually colored. (MOS:PROSECOLOR)

• ((color|orange|Hello, world!)) → Hello, world!
• ((color|#00F000|Hello, world!)) → 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)

Styling individual links on a page

You can set the color of an individual link or set of links on a page (rather than a global change to the style of all links on Wikipedia) as follows. Setting styles in this way will apply to everyone who views those particular links or that particular page, not just you. However, links intended for readers should never be manually colored. (MOS:LINKCOLOR)

The ((colored link)) template takes two parameters to function : the color of the link, the article being linked to, and an optional third parameter for alternative text to display as a piped link.

• ((colored link|orange|Canada)) → Canada
• ((colored link|#00F000|Page name to link|Alternative text)) → Alternative text

Or

You can turn links a different color like so:

*[[example|<span style="color:Orange;">This page exists.</span>]]
*[[exampl|<span style="color:green;">This page does not exist.</span>]]

Or, if you desire existence checking, you can try:

*[[example|((#ifexist: example|<span style="color:Orange;">This page exists.</span>|This page does not exist.))]]
*[[exampl|((#ifexist: exampl|<span style="color:green;">This page exists.</span>|This page does not exist.))]]

External links

A similar styled span can be added within an external link:

*[http://example.com <span style="color:green;">Example external link</span>]

Styling all links just for you

You can also customize link colors by editing the CSS at your skin subpage. This is a change which will apply to all links throughout the site, but will only be visible to you.

The standard link selectors are:

• a:link — defines the style for normal unvisited links
• a:visited — defines the style for visited links
• a:active — defines the style for active links; links become active once you click on them
• a:hover — defines the style for hovered links; links hover when the mouse moves over it

Colors are defined by hexadecimal characters: see web colors.

/* standard link colors */
.mw-body-content a:link { color: #0000FF; } /* normal unvisited links */
.mw-body-content a:link:visited { color: #0B0080; } /* visited links */
.mw-body-content a:link:active { color: #FF0000; } /* active links */
.mw-body-content a:link.new { color: #FF0000; } /* new links */
.mw-body-content a:link.extiw { color: #3366BB; } /* interwiki links */
.mw-body-content a:link.external { color: #3366BB; } /* external links */
.mw-body-content a:link.stub { color: #772233; } /* hovered links */

.mw-body-content a:link {color: #FF0000}
.mw-body-content a:visited {color: #00FF00}
.mw-body-content a:hover {color: #FF00FF}
.mw-body-content a:active {color: #0000FF}

Notes:

• a:hover must come after a:link and a:visited
• a:active must come after a:hover
• you need to have ".mw-body-content" in front of the standard link definition, because otherwise the default definition on this website will still take precedence over what you have defined.

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 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.

Help desk

• ((resize))
• ((background color))
• ((font color)) – allows setting both text and background color
• ((coltit)) – colored table header cell
• ((fake link))