Help:Creation and usage of media files

This help page is a how-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts WP:CMF WP:CUM

Images, audio and video files must be uploaded into Wikipedia using the "Upload file" link on the left-hand navigation bar. Only logged in users can upload files. Once a file is uploaded, other pages can include or link to the file. Uploaded files are given the "File:" prefix by the system, and each one has an image description page. Please consider uploading freely licensed content to the Wikimedia Commons instead of here. This allows the files to be used in articles instantly by all Wikimedia projects. Files from Wikimedia Commons use the same syntax described below, there is no extra step needed. The maximum size of an uploaded file is 100 megabytes. The following file types may be uploaded: png, gif, jpg/jpeg, xcf, pdf, mid, ogg/ogv/oga, svg, djvu and webm. note: pdf and djvu are intended primarily for projects like Wikisource.

If you want to give a link to the file description page in an article, use an extra colon at the front, e.g., "[[:File:pagename". If you type "[[Media:pagename]]", a download link to the media file is created. The page name will contain the file type such as pagename.jpg.