Template:Blockquote/doc

For linking a subject to a collection of quotes on Wikiquote, see Template:Wikiquote.

Usage

{{Quote}} adds a block quotation to an article page.

This is easier to type and is more wiki-like than the equivalent HTML <blockquote>...</blockquote> tags, and has additional pre-formatted attribution parameters for author and source.

Note: Block quotes do not normally contain quotation marks

(see MOS:Blockquote).

Synopsis

Basic use:

{{Quote|text=Quoted material. |author=Attribution}}

Parameters

|text= a.k.a. |1= The material being quoted, without quotation marks around it. It is always safest to name this parameter (rather than use an unnamed positional parameter), because any inclusion of the = character (e.g. in a URL in a source citation) will otherwise break the template.

|author= a.k.a. |2= Attribution information that will appear below the quotation.

|source= a.k.a. |3= Title of the work the quote appears in. This parameter immediately follows the output of |author= (and an auto-generated comma); it does not auto-italicize. Major works (books, plays, albums, feature films, etc.) should be italicized; minor works (articles, chapters, poems, songs, TV episodes, etc.) go in quotation marks

(see MOS:TITLES). Both can be given at once: |source="The Aerodynamics of Shaved Weasels", ''Perspectives on Mammal Barbering''.

Reference citations

A reference citation can be placed:

• In the regular-prose introduction to the quotation:
  According to Pat Doe, in "Underwater Basketweaving Tips" (2015):<ref>...</ref> {{quote |text=Quoted material.}}
• At the end of the quotation, when a quotation is given without |author= or |source= (e.g. because the material before the quote makes it clear who is being quoted):
  According to Pat Doe, in "Underwater Basketweaving Tips" (2015): {{quote |text=Quoted material.<ref>...</ref>}}
• After the quoted person's name, in |author=, when a |source= is not being added:
  As noted in "Underwater Basketweaving Tips" (2015): {{quote |text=Quoted material. |author=Pat Doe<ref>...</ref>}}
• After the source title, in |source= (the preferred location with both attribution parameters are present):
  One expert noted in 2015: {{quote |text=Quoted material. |author=Pat Doe |source="Underwater Basketweaving Tips"<ref>...</ref>}}

Please do not place the citation in a |author= or |source= parameter by itself, as it will produce a nonsensical attribution line that looks like:
     — 
Please also do not put it just outside the {{Quote}} template, as this will cause a:
     
on a line by itself.

Style

Styling is applied through CSS rules in MediaWiki:Common.css.

/* Styling for Template:Quote */
blockquote.templatequote {
     margin-top: 0;
}
blockquote.templatequote div.templatequotecite {
    line-height: 1.5em;
    /* @noflip */
    text-align: left;
    /* @noflip */
    padding-left: 1.6em;
    margin-top: 0;
}

HTML:

<blockquote class="templatequote">
<p>Quote text.</p>
<cite><div class="templatequotecite">—Author, Source</div></cite>
</blockquote>

The {{Quote/to right of image}} variant of the template adds margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; padding-left: 2.8em; padding-right: 2.8em; to blockquote.templatequote { }.

Examples

Markup	{{Quote|text=Cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war.|author=[[William Shakespeare]]|source=''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]'', act III, scene I}}
Renders as	Cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war. — William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act III, scene I

Limitations

If you do not provide text, the template generates a parser error message, which will appear in red text in the rendered page.

If any parameter's actual value contains an equals sign (=), you must use named parameters or a blank-name parameter, as: {{{|text}}}. (The text before the equals sign gets interpreted as a named parameter otherwise.)

If any parameter's actual value contains characters used for wiki markup syntax (such as pipe, brackets, single quotation marks, etc.), you may need to escape it. See Template:! and friends.

Be wary of URLs which contain restricted characters. The equals sign is especially common.

Put a break (newline) after the template, or the next blank line might be ignored.

As noted above, the |source= parameter will forcibly italicize all content in it; this is often undesirable, in which case include the material in the |author= parameter.

Next to left-floated images

The variant template {{Quote/to right of image}} will work around a CSS bug, in which the block quotation does not indent if it is next to a left-floated image. As of 4 August 2015, this problem and the fix for it has been reported to Mediawiki talk:Common.css#Fix for very long-standing problem of blockquote not working with images. It is not known when this will be fixed. After it is fixed, this variant template can be replaced with the stock {{Quote}}.

Next to right-floated boxes

As of September 2015, the text of a block quotation may rarely overflow (in Firefox or other Gecko browsers) a right-floated item (e.g. a {{Listen}} box, when that item is below another right-floated item of a fixed size that is narrower. In Safari and other Webkit browsers (and even more rarely in Chrome/Chromium) the same condition can cause the block quotation to be pushed downward. Both of these problems can be fixed by either:

1. removing the sizing on the upper item and letting it use its default size (e.g. removing ###x###px sizing or |upright= from a right-floated image above a wider right-floated object that is being overflowed by quotation text; or
2. using |style=overflow:inherit;= in the quotation template.

There may be other solutions, and future browser upgrades may eliminate the issue. It arises at all because of the blockquote { overflow: hidden; } CSS declaration in Mediawiki:Common.css, which itself works around other, more common display problems. A solution that fixes all of the issues is unknown at this time.

Vanishing quotes

In rare layout cases, e.g. when quotes are sandwiched between userboxes, a quotation may appear blanked out, in some browsers. The workaround for this problem is to add |style=overflow:inherit; to such an instance of the template.

Line breaks

---

(This section is transcluded from Template:Blockquote paragraphs)

The <blockquote> element and any templates that use it do not honor newlines:

Markup	Renders as
<blockquote> Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 </blockquote>	Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4

An easy solution is to use the {{poemquote}} template instead of <tag>. This is effectively the same as using the <poem> tag inside <blockquote>, which converts line breaks to <br /> tags:

Markup	Renders as
<blockquote><poem> Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 </poem></blockquote>	<poem> Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 </poem>

To markup actual paragraphs within block quotations, entire blank lines can be used between them, which will convert to <p>...</p> tags:

Markup	Renders as
<blockquote> Paragraph 1 Paragraph 2 Paragraph 3 </blockquote>	Paragraph 1 Paragraph 2 Paragraph 3

This paragraph style also works with {{quote}}, which is a replacement for <tag> that also has parameters to make formatting of the attribution more conveniently and consistently.

---

Template documentation[create] [purge]

Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.

</noinclude>

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. Click here to see a monthly parameter usage report for this template based on this TemplateData.

TemplateData for Blockquote

Adds a block quotation.

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
text	text 1 quote	The text to quote Example Cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war.	Content	required
sign	sign 2 cite author	The person being quoted Example [[William Shakespeare]]	Content	suggested
source	source 3	A source for the quote Example ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]'', act III, scene I	Content	suggested

Known problems

This template sets a text style which might ignore one blank line, and so the template must be ended with a break (newline). Otherwise, beware inline, as:

• text here {{quote|this is quoted}} More text here spans a blank line

Unless a {{quote|xx}} is ended with a line break, then the next blank line might be ignored and two paragraphs joined.

See also