Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Chapter 15. Adding Images

One of the most striking changes in Wikipedia in the last few years is that most articles now include at least one image. Editors have added those images, one by one, and now an article without at least one illustration seems incomplete.

This chapter shows you how to upload an image for use in a Wikipedia article. Until you get an image off your computer and onto a server that Wikipedia uses, you can’t use that image in an article. This chapter also shows you how to place an image in an article, after you or someone else has uploaded it.

Note

In Wikipedia (and in this chapter), the word “image” doesn’t just mean a photo; it can be a map, a drawing, a chart, or even an animated gif. “Photo” refers only to an image taken by a camera.

Uploading Images

When it comes to images, less is usually more. A glut of images in an article may make it worse, not better. Don’t overwhelm a medium-sized or small article by adding lots of images to it. Focus on uploading images that can support and illustrate the text of an article, not replace that text.

If you do have a bunch of images that you could use for an article, but that you don’t intend to use unless the article becomes much larger, you can still upload them. Instead of uploading them to the English Wikipedia (where every uploaded image needs to have a home in an article), you’ll upload such images to the Wikimedia Commons, the place where all the 200-plus different language Wikipedias can use it. In fact, this chapter ...