Editing Encyclopedia:Manual of Style (section)

==Media files==
{{See also|Help:Creation and usage of media files}}

===Images===
{{Shortcut|MOS:IM}}
{{Main|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images}}
{{See also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Images|Wikipedia:Image use policy|Help:Picture tutorial}}

*Each image should be inside the level{{nbs}}2 section to which it relates, within the section defined by the most recent <code>==Heading==</code> delimited by two equal signs, or at the top of the lead section. Do not place images immediately above section headings.
*Avoid [[Wikipedia:Sandwich|sandwiching text]] horizontally between two images that face each other, and between an image and an infobox or similar.
*It is often preferable to place images of people so they "look" toward the text. Do not achieve this by reversing the image.<!-- Can create a false presentation e.g., by reversing the location of scars or other features. -->
*Any [[Wikipedia:Picture tutorial#Galleries|galleries]] should comply with {{section link|Wikipedia:Image use policy|Image galleries}}. Consider [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects#Where to place links|linking to additional images on Commons]] instead.
*Avoid referring to images as being to the left, the right, above or below, because image placement varies with platform, and is meaningless to people using screen readers; instead, use captions to identify images.
*An image's {{para|alt}} text takes the image's place for those who are unable to see the image. See [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Alternative text for images]].

===Other media===
{{See also|Wikipedia:Videos}}
Style guidelines for still images are generally also applicable to equivalent questions regarding the use of audio and video media.

===Avoid using images to display text<span id="Avoid entering textual information as images"></span>===
{{See also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Text}}
{{Shortcut|MOS:TEXTASIMAGES}}

Textual information should always be transmitted <em>as text</em>, rather than in an image. True text can be easily searched, selected, copied, and manipulated by readers; its presentation can also be adjusted using [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]]. These tasks are generally difficult or impossible with text presented in an image: images are slower to download, and generally cannot be searched or processed by [[screen reader]]s used by the visually impaired. Any important textual information in an image should be provided somewhere as text, generally either in the image's caption or alt text.

For entering textual information as audio, see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia]].

===Captions===
{{Shortcut|MOS:CAPTION}}
{{Main|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions}}

Photographs and other graphics should have captions, unless they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article or when they are "self-captioning" images (such as reproductions of album or book covers). In a biography article no caption is necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone, but one might be used to give the year, the subject's age, or other circumstances of the portrait along with the name of the subject.

====Formatting of captions====
*Captions normally start with a capital letter.{{efn|name=Sentence case}}
*Most captions are not complete sentences but merely [[sentence fragment]]s which should not end with a period. However, if any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then every sentence and every sentence fragment in that caption should end with a period.
*The text of captions should not be specially formatted, except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text (e.g., italics for the Latin name of a species).
*Captions should be succinct; more information can be included on its description page, or in the main text.
*Captions for technical charts and diagrams may need to be substantially longer than usual; they should fully describe all elements of the image and indicate its significance.