This citation template provides formatting and organizational features for footnotes. It encapsulates the <references /> tag used by the Cite MediaWiki extension to show the list of references as defined by <ref> tags. It adds support for sizing the column width, groups and List-defined references.
There are no required parameters; if none are supplied, a single-column list will be generated if there are fewer than 10 references in the list. If you have more than 10 references, it will use columns of 30em wide if your device allows this.
Optional parameters are:
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|30em with no space (i.e. not |30 em). Note that this replaces colwidth—see § Obsolete parameters.{{Reflist|group=groupname}} renders all references with groupname as the group name (<ref group="groupname">). There are five pre-defined group names that style the list differently. See § Grouped references below.|group= parameter, without affecting group functionality. See § List styles below.{{Reflist|30em}} (for example) instructs the browser to create as many columns as possible (of width at least 30 em, in this example) given the width of the display window. (Units supported are em, ex, in, cm, mm, pt, pc, px, but em is almost always used.) There must not be a space between the number and the unit. Percent is not supported.
Choose a width appropriate to the typical width of the references:
The syntax {{Reflist|2}} (for example), which specifies two columns of equal width regardless of the available display width, is deprecated. When you use 1 the template gives you a single column while 2 will pretend you specified 30em. When using higher column counts, it will pretend you specified 25em.
A list of references may be defined within {{Reflist}} using the |refs= parameter, just like including named <ref name="...">...</ref> elements inside the <references>...</references> container.
References can be grouped into separate sections (for explanatory notes, table references, and the like) via group=:
<ref group="groupname">where groupname is (for example) notes or sources. The group name need not be enclosed in quotes; this differs from the footnote marker where quotes are required if the group name includes a space.
Each group used in the article must have a matching reference list:
{{Reflist|group=groupname}}There are predefined group names that automatically set the labels in the footnote markers and the reference list to other styles. Thus, setting {{Reflist|group=lower-alpha}} will set the group to lower-alpha and will style the reference list with lower alpha characters. The matching footnote marker can be formed by <ref group="lower-alpha">...</ref>. This is made easier by a series of templates to set the group/label styles for the footnote marker and the reference list:
As noted in § Predefined groups, there are predefined groups that automatically add list styling. Using the listed templates is more convenient than using |liststyle=.
Reference lists are by default numbered lists. By using the |liststyle= parameter, you can control how the list is rendered. For example, using |liststyle=upper-roman will result in references being labeled with Roman numerals instead of decimal numbers. The parameter accepts any valid CSS value defined for list-style-type.
It is possible to use |liststyle= so that the labels for the footnote marker and the reference list marker differ. This should be used with care as it can be confusing to readers. For example:
In the unusual case of an image being placed to the left of a reference list, layout problems may occur on some browsers. This can be prevented by using the columns feature.
The font size should reduce to 90% for almost all browsers, but may appear to show at 100% for very old browsers, such as early versions of Internet Explorer.[general 1] As of December 21, 2010, the standard <references /> tag has the same font styling. The smaller font may be disabled through Preferences → Gadgets → Disable smaller font sizes of elements such as infoboxes, navboxes and reference lists.
Multiple columns are generated by using CSS. Almost all browsers should support the multi-column property and will show multiple columns with {{Reflist}}.[general 2][general 3][general 4]
These browsers support CSS columns:
These browsers do not support CSS columns:
The use of columns can result in widows and orphans, where a citation at the bottom of a column may be split to the top of the next column. MediaWiki:Common.css includes CSS rules to prevent list items from breaking between columns. Widows may still show in extreme circumstances, such as a reference list formatted in columns where only a single reference is defined.
By editing your CSS, the personal appearance of the reference list can be customized. From Preferences, select the Appearance tab, then on the selected skin select Custom CSS. After editing and saving, follow the instructions at the top of the page to purge. See Wikipedia:Skin#Customisation (advanced users) for more help.
Font size
The font size for all reference lists defaults to 90% of the standard size. To change it, add:
ol.references,.mw-parser-output div.reflist,.mw-parser-output div.refbegin { font-size: 90%;}Change 90% to the desired size.
Columns
To disable columns, add:
.references-column-width { column-width: auto !important;}Column dividers
To add dividers (rules) between columns, add:
.references-column-width { column-rule: 1px solid #aaa;}You can alter the appearance of the dividers by changing the values.
Collapsing and scrolling
There have been a number of requests to add functionality for a collapsible or scrolling reference list. These requests have not been fulfilled due to issues with readability, accessibility, and printing. The applicable guidelines are at MOS:SCROLL. Links between the inline cite and the reference list do not work when the reference list is enclosed in a collapsed box.
To display the reference list in a scrollbox or collapsed per user, see Help:Reference display customization.
For discussion on previous attempts to do this with a template, see the discussions for Scrollref and Refbox.
Including the section title
There have been suggestions to include section header markup such as ==References==. This is inadvisable because:
These parameters are no longer in use:
Articles using unsupported parameters are tracked in Category:Pages using reflist with unknown parameters (6).
TemplateData for Reflist
This template displays the list of footnotes at the end of an article and provides additional formatting and organizing options. After hitting "Apply changes" and turning back to VE read mode, you will not see the references list. After hitting "Publish page" and turning back to normal read mode the reference list will reappear with the changes applied, see T53146.
Do not use {{Reflist}} or other templates or modules that use {{#tag:references}} in numbered or unnumbered lists if the list is inside an HTML div tag. See the talk page (permalink) for examples and details.
No — :{{Reflist}} No — *{{Reflist}} No — #{{Reflist}}
Yes — {{Reflist}}<references /> tags to set multi-column display on/offVariants