Click the "Editbeta" tab to change an article using VisualEditor
There are two editing environments on Wikipedia. This page tells you how to use the new VisualEditor environment. For information about using the older wikitext markup editor (available at the "Edit source" link), see Help:Editing.
The VisualEditor toolbar
The VisualEditor toolbar appears at the top of the screen when you begin editing through VisualEditor. It includes some familiar icons:
Undo and Redo the changes you've made. (One or both arrows are greyed out if you have nothing you can yet undo or redo.)
The Change format pull-down menu allows you to change the header level of text. Standard section headings are at the "Heading" level, as shown in the illustration. (In wikispeak, this is "level 2".)
In addition to changing the level of existing headers, you use this menu to create a header (select/highlight some text, then pick a level) and to convert an existing header to regular text (click anywhere within a header, then pick "Paragraph).
Formatting: The "B" turns selected text bold, and the "I" italicizes it. The chain is the linking tool. The fourth icon ("clear formatting") removes, from content that you have selected, whatever formatting is currently applied to that text.
Lists & indentation: The first two icons allow you to make numbered or bullet lists, respectively. The last two allow you to increase or decrease the indentation level of content that you have selected.
Media, references & transclusions: Each icon opens a dedicated dialog:
The "Media" icon (a picture of mountains) opens the media dialog.
The "References list" icon (three books) opens a dialog to display references.
The "Transclusion" icon (a puzzle piece) allows you to edit templates.
Page settings currently allows you to edit categories, to change the way that the page you're editing is listed in category pages ("Smith, John", rather than "John Smith", for example), and to see (but not edit) the language links assigned to the page.
Cancel or save your changes. If you click "Cancel, you'll be asked to confirm that's what you want to do. If you click "Save page", you'll see a dialog box with final steps to do to complete your edit.
When you're done editing click the green "Save page" button in the toolbar.
Now you'll see a small dialog box. Here you should enter a brief summary of your actions (in the box that says "Describe what you changed"); this is the edit summary. The number at the bottom right of the box, which initially is 255, shows how many more characters you are able to enter into that box.
You can also mark your edit as minor, and you can add (or not add) the page to your Watchlist.
If you click the "Review your changes" button (recommended), you will see a page that Wikipedia calls a diff. This shows, in wikitext format, the differences between the previous version of the page and what the page will be after you save it (if you don't change anything more).
When you're on the "diff" page, if the differences (changes) look good, you should click "Return to save form" to continue the page save process. If, instead, you want to make further edits to the page, you should click the "^" in the upper right corner.
Finally, after you've entered the edit summary, checked (or not) the minor page edit and page watch checkboxes, and reviewed (or not) your changes, you should click the "Save page" button to complete your edit.
(If for some reason, at any point, you decide you want to return to editing, click the "^" in the upper right corner of the dialog box.)