Wikipedia:Images linking to articles

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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.

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This page explains how to place images on wiki pages, where the image acts as a hypertext link to somewhere other than the image description page. Care should be taken that this is done in compliance with the licensing terms of the file in question, particularly if they require proper attribution.

Most image links are created using the [[File:...]] syntax, and clicking on such an image follows a link to a page with information about the image itself, including the licensing terms. However, it is sometimes desirable to have images that link to other pages. This can be done in two ways:

Using the |link= option with the [[File:...]] syntax.
Using the <imagemap>...</imagemap> syntax, provided by the ImageMap extension.

The |link= syntax is easier to use and can create simple images that the imagemap syntax cannot, but it can only be used with plain pictures; it cannot be used with thumb images.

The imagemap syntax is very flexible, but it is complicated. It allows different parts of the image to link to different targets; the details of how to do that are out of scope of this article.

Examples

Note: Line breaks have been inserted to make the example easier to read, but must be removed in real use.

Internal link without a caption or magnification link

With image syntax, it can be done this way:

[[File:Example2.png|150px |link=Main Page |alt=Alt text |Title text]]

This cannot be done with imagemap syntax.

External link without a caption or magnification link

With image syntax:

[[File:Example2.png|150px |link=http://www.example.org |alt=Alt text|Title text]]

With imagemap syntax:

<imagemap>
File:Example2.png|150px|alt=Alt text
default [http://www.example.org Title text]
desc none
</imagemap>

With a caption

This cannot be done with the image syntax, because a thumb image ignores its |link= parameter. With imagemaps, it can be done this way:

<imagemap>
File:Example2.png|150px|thumb|alt=Alt text|Caption
default [[Main Page|Title text]]
</imagemap>

Caption

With info link but no caption

This cannot be done with image syntax. With imagemap syntax, it can be done this way:

<imagemap>
File:Example2.png|150px|alt=Alt text
default [[Main Page|Title text]]
</imagemap>