This template is used in system messages, and on approximately 161,000 pages. Changes to it can cause immediate changes to the Wikipedia user interface. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Please discuss changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Plain link. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template will allow you to create a local or interwiki link (such as a link to the history of a page) on a page without having the icon following the link. This can be used, for example, when internal or interwiki links appear as external links. See Help:URL#URLs on other Wikimedia projects for more information.

You can use ((fullurl)) magicword to generate URLs to Wikipedia pages.

Also, this template is not suitable for genuinely external links, since it suppresses displaying the external link small icon (); for external links, use ((URL))

• ((Plain link|url=https://www.wikipedia.org)) gives [1]
• ((Plain link|https://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia)) gives Wikipedia
• ((Plain link|https://www.wikipedia.org | Wikipedia)) gives Wikipedia
• ((Plain link|https://www.google.co.uk|Google)) gives Google

Note that if your url or link title contains an equals sign = you must use named parameters:

• ((Plain link|url=//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Equals_sign&oldid=282228764|name="=" )) gives "="

To be more concise, you can use ((scp)) or ((plnk)) and numbers as parameter names, e.g.:

• ((scp|1=//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Equals_sign&oldid=282228764|2="=")) gives the same "="
• ((plnk|1=//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Equals_sign&oldid=282228764|2="=")) gives the same "="

• Help:External link icons
• Template:Querylink, generates a plain link for Wikipedia pages with extended parameters
• Template:Plain, a similar template that keeps the URL written out
• Template:Diff
• Template:Oldid
• Template:URL