Guide to Linking and the Mention System

The mention system exists to make your world building life on World Anvil a whole lot easier; it links your articles together so your readers will stay on your world for all eternity.
If you have started an article and you mention something that you already have an article for then the only thing you have to do is to mention it and it will appear as a link. Even if you don't have an existing article you can still mention it and it will also appear in your to-do-list.

Mentioning an existing article

To mention an article that you have already created, maybe with the purple button, you type an @ and add the first letters of the name of the article or the first letters of the article type. Then you click the button of the article you want to link to and it will automatically appear in the editor.

If you have several articles with the same name but they are different templates you can search for them too, like this @person

Mentioning a non-existing article

You can also link an article that hasn't been created yet. To do so, simply add the link as normal, typing the full name of the future article. After the article title, type its template name between (parenthesis). Like this:

The available templates are listed in the bbcode reference sidebar while editing an article, but they are: (character) or (person), Conflict (militaryConflict) or (conflict), Condition (condition), Document (document), Ethnicity (ethnicity), Formation (formation),Geographic location (location), Generic article (article), Item (item), Language (language), Law (law), Settlement (settlement), Building/Location (landmark), Material (material), Myth / Legend (myth) or (legend) or (prophesy), Organization (organization), Prose (prose), Profession (profession), Rank/Title (rank) or (title), Spell (spell), Species (species), Technology (technology), Tradition / Ritual (ritual) or (tradition) and Vehicle (vehicle).
Note that when you save an article with a link that points to an uncreated article, the uncreated article will be added to the to-do list automatically.

Excerpts vs. Tooltips

While editing an article, go to the "Design" tab on top of the page and find the "Excerpt" text box:

That excerpt will appear when people hover over the link. Like this;

If your article isn't created yet you can fix that by adding a tooltip like this;
Testy

Excerpts are to explain what an article is about. Tooltips can also be used for that. But it can also be used to explain words or concepts that you won't be making any articles for.

Block links and other tidbits

While you are editing an article, on the right sidebar below the to-do list you will find this:

The text link is just the regular link that you get with the mentioning system. But the block link looks like the left one if you are placing them at the bottom of the vignette or a text box or like the right one if you put it in the sidebar.

Table of contents

• Mentioning an existing article
• Mentioning a non-exiting article
• Excerpts vs. Tooltips
• Block links and other tidbits

FAQ

Can I change the display text of a link? Yes, the displayed text does not affect the actual link. Anything between the two square brackets can be changes to anything you wish.

Can I force a mention link to open in a new browser tab? No. You have to use the url-BBCode with the pipe-tab option.

Extended mention system

Advanced linking is a Guild feature!
If you want to make use of this feature, consider supporting World Anvil.

Guild members can also link to other elements (i.e. images, maps, historical events, categories and secrets) using the mention system. The only difference is that instead of using "@", the character "[" must be used. To use it, simply type "[" followed by the name of the elements you want to link to and a drop-down will appear, just as with the article mention system.

Other guides

Using the purple button

Instead of using a link placeholder, you can use the purple button (bottom right corner) to create articles and other kinds of content on the fly, and link to them immediately without leaving the article edit screen! Check out the Guide to the Quick Buttons for more details.