How to use Visual Editor

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This is a Public wiki, so anyone can view the information, but only users with an account setup on this wiki website (and a confirmed email address) can Edit existing pages or Add new pages.

How to Edit a wiki page

  • Login to your account on this wiki using the login link in the upper right corner of every page.
  • Browse to the page you want to edit.
  • Click on the Edit tab along the top of the page (Note: The Edit Source tab uses the more advanced Source editor).
  • That will load the page into the Visual Editor, so you can modify it. Notice the Tool Bar across the top with icons for various edit functions.
  • After the page is loaded, find the text you want to change, and change it.
  • If you want to Bold or italicize some text, just highlight the relevant text and use the tool bar options across the top, or you can use shortcut keys Ctrl-B for Bold and Ctrl-I for Italic.
  • If you want to Undo your last change, just click on the back-arrow on the far left of the tool bar.
  • When everything looks ok, click on Save changes on the far right of the tool bar, to save your changes and redisplay the updated page in Read mode.
Note: When you click on Save changes it will bring up a verification dialog where you can enter a brief summary of changes you are making.
You also have two Watchlist related options you can set before verifying that you want to save your changes to this page:
  • Check the 'This is a minor edit' checkbox if this is only a minor edit, so it will not send out the Watchlist email notification to any users that may be watching this wiki page.
  • If you want this page added to your Watchlist, so you will be notified when other users make changes to this page, then check the 'Watch this page' checkbox.
  • If you want to cancel all of your changes for some reason, just click on the Read tab, to get back into View mode, and if you have made any changes, it will ask if you want to cancel/discard your changes.

How to Add New Images to a wiki page

  • While editing the page, place the cursor at the start of the line where you want to insert the image. (Usually, you will want to place images at the start of a section, so the associated text will 'flow' around the image in that section).
  • Click on the Insert link in the tool bar at the top of the page and select Images and Media.
  • That will bring up the Media settings dialog box. Click Upload.
  • Then click Select a file to find and select the file to be uploaded from your computer.
  • Click This my own work to confirm that you will be giving proper credit for this image, and then click Upload.
  • Enter a brief description of this file (or just copy/paste the filename into the Description box if that is sufficient description), and then click Save.
  • The image will then be displayed, and you can click Use this image.
  • You will then be asked to enter the caption for this image. Be sure to include proper credit (For example: Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, www.ha.com). (Note: You can highlight parts of the caption text and use Ctrl+B to Bold or Ctrl+I to Italicize the text, the same as you can with regular page text).
  • If you want to use the default image Type (thumbnail), Positioning (Right alignment) and Size, then you can click Insert and the image will be inserted where you had placed the cursor.
  • If you do not want to use the image defaults, you can click Advanced and that will allow you to change the Image settings, before clicking Insert to insert the image.


Image Filenames: It is recommended that you use consistent descriptive image filenames to make it easier to locate image files, since there are many image files on this wiki. It is easiest to rename the file on your computer before you upload it to the wiki. For example, SD-Wetonka-Ch11441-FNB-1902PB-5-SN5897C-Heritage.jpg for a National bank note.

How to Add a New Page to the wiki

Adding a new page to the wiki is easy, especially when the link label matches the new page title.

Following are instructions for two different ways to create a new wiki page:

A. The first method is to create the link first, and then click on the new (red) link to create the new page:

  • While editing the page, type in the link label where you want it.
  • Highlight your link label and click on the Link icon (or press Ctrl-K) to turn that label into a link.
  • The link will automatically default to the text you have highlighted, which is what you want in this case, so you can just click Done, and the link will be created.
  • Save your edit.
  • Then you can click on that link (which will be red to indicate that page does not exist), and it will bring up an edit box, with instructions, where you can type in text for that page, and then click Save page at the bottom, and the page will be created. (Note: Usually I will just type in 'page placeholder' or something like that, and then save the page, to get it created, and finish the page up later).


B. You can also create a new page using the Search box in the upper right-hand corner:

  • If the link label for the new page has not been added to the page yet, Edit the page, type in the link label where you want it, and Save your changes.
  • Highlight/copy the link label and then paste that text into the search box in the upper right-hand corner.
  • Click on search and it will show the search results. On the top of the list, it will ask if you want to create that page (since it didn't find a page with that title).
  • Click on the red link showing the page title, and it will bring up an edit box, with instructions, where you can type in text for that page, and then click Save page at the bottom, and the page will be created. (Note: Usually I will just type in 'page placeholder' or something like that, and then save the page, to get it created, and finish the page up later).
  • After the page is created, go back to the page with the link to your new page, get into the Visual Editor, and highlight your link label again.
  • Click on the Link icon (or press Ctrl-K) to turn that label into a link.
  • The link will automatically default to the text you have highlighted, which is what you want in this case, so you can just click Done, and the link will be created.
  • Save your edit.
  • Then you can click on that link, and it will take you to your new page, where you can finish editing the content for that page.


Important Note: Wiki page titles are case-sensitive, so be sure to get the link/page title EXACTLY as you want it to be for the new page.

After a page is created, you won't be able to change the title (since that would break any existing links to that page), but don't worry if you create a page by mistake or need to retitle it. The Wiki Administrator can rename page by moving the page to a new page/title (with a redirect page created (if needed) to forward links to the old page).