Feature guide to articles

This guide walks you through the main aspects of World Anvil’s Articles, and will get you started on your worldbuilding quest! For more details, check out the extra guides linked into this article.

   

What is an article on World Anvil?

On World Anvil, articles are the main place to write about your worldbuilding: characters, items, monsters, religions, cultures, cities, spells, galaxies, oceans… and anything else you can imagine! Think of it as the “Wikipedia” of your world.

 

To create an article:

1. Click the green Create button at the bottom right of the interface
2. Choose a template
3. Add a title (and anything else you want!)

 

Your new article will be autosaved to your active world! You’ll only see the Create button if you have a World or Campaign active.

 

What kind of content can you put in a World Anvil article?

• Text! This often makes up the bulk of worldbuilding articles. Add your ideas as bullet points, or write flowing prose - it’s up to you.
• Links to other articles: While writing text in your article, you’ll probably want to add links to other articles! To do this, just type @ and the first letters of the article you want to add; a list will pop up, and you can click to select the article you want to link. This is called the mention system. You can also run the autolinker on your article’s text: this scans your text and suggests other articles from your world you might want to link in.
• Images, tables, dice rolls, spoiler buttons, etc: As well as writing text in articles, you can add pictures, tables, spoiler buttons, dice rolls, and more. How you do this depends on your chosen text editor (more below!).
• Blocks of World Anvil content: You can also add your other World Anvil content, like maps, articles, family trees, diplomacy webs etc. as embedded blocks in your articles. This connects your world together, and helps your readers navigate your setting.

 

Which text editor should you use?

There are two main text editors on World Anvil:

• Visual Editor: This is the best editor for beginners, as it offers a simple, streamlined experience. It’s automatically selected when you create your first world.
• Euclid editor: Designed for advanced World Anvil users who want to create more complicated formatting. It’s more complex to use, but offers greater flexibility.

 

To find the full list of elements you can add to an article:

 

• In the Visual editor, just type / to bring up the menu of things you can do! You can also read this guide to the visual editor.
• In the Euclid editor, read the Guide to BBCode to learn the full capabilities of the system!

 

You can change your text editor in your World Configuration.

 

What is an article template on World Anvil?

All World Anvil articles start with an article template. Whenever you create an article, you’ll be asked to choose one. So what’s the difference between the article templates?

 

Article templates are tailored to help you create different things in your world, so they contain different features and worldbuilding prompts.

 

For example:

• the character template lets you create family trees, add a character image, and has prompts for eye color, height, personality, etc.
• the language template has a dictionary function, to help you organize your conlangs, conslangs, idioms, etc.
• the organization template lets you track diplomatic relationships between the organizations of your world

 

Every article template (except generic and prose) has two main sections for writing your worldbuilding:

 

The vignette is the top section of your article. You can write freeform about anything you like here! If you’re worldbuilding with just notes and bullet points, this is a good place to keep your freeform thoughts. If you’re publishing your worldbuilding articles so others can read them, this is where you should write your article’s introduction!

 

The Worldbuilding Prompts are different on each template type. After all, organizations don’t need eye-color as a prompt, and characters don’t need a dictionary function! Only fill in the prompts which are useful or inspiring to you - you don’t have to fill them all in! Worldbuilding prompts are available from the advanced edit interface of an article.

         

Edit mode vs View mode for Articles

On World Anvil, articles have an Edit mode and a View mode.

 

The view mode is what other people see, if your article is published and public. It might include fancy fonts, patterned backgrounds and interactive elements, depending on which visual theme you chose for your world, and how you customize it.

 

The edit mode is your writing workspace. It’s a clean, clear interface that’s quick to update. Often when selecting an article to edit, you’ll get a choice between Edit and Advanced Edit. Here’s the differences, in a nutshell:

 

• Edit is ideal for quick changes - like adding text, changing the cover image, adding tags, etc. You can access the edit interface of an article via the search (ctrl+k) from anywhere on World Anvil, and it appears as a modal window over your current workspace. It’s great for making edits or updates to an article without leaving the page you’re on. For example, use the edit interface for adding ideas to a city/character/religion while you’re editing a map, a timeline or a manuscript, or while you’re running an RPG session.
• Advanced Edit is good for more in-depth changes, as well the full range of controls for an article, like password protection, NSFW flagging etc. It’s also where you can find the complete list of worldbuilding prompts for a template. Advanced edit is a full-page display, so it redirects you from what you were previously working on. Read the guide to the advanced edit interface for more.

 

What is Published/Draft on a World Anvil article?

When you first create an article in your world, it’ll be a draft. Drafts are only visible to you and your coauthors. Once you’re ready, you should publish your article.

 

• Published & Public: Anyone can see this
• Published & Private: Only you (& your chosen subscribers) can see this
• Draft & Public: No one except you (& your co authors) can see this
• Draft & Private: No one except you (& your co authors) can see this

 

If your article is published and public, anyone can see it. Having published, public articles in your world helps you find readers for your work, and build a fan-following for your world!

 

If your article is published and private, only you can see it, as well as people you’ve chosen to give access. If you’re creating a private world bible for yourself (and your co-authors), use published, private articles as standard. Giving subscriber access to published, private content is a good way to monetize your work too (read the Professional Workflow for more).

 

If your article is draft, regardless of privacy status, only you and your co-authors can see it. Draft articles don’t have all the functionality of published articles, so it’s important to publish your articles (either public or private) when you’re ready.

 

You can also make an article public, but make sections of it private, or shared exclusively with your chosen few. Read more about privacy and secrets on World Anvil to learn more. (By the way, you can also do that with maps, timelines and most other kinds of World Anvil content too!)

 

How do I manage and organize my articles?

Once you’ve created several articles, you should organize them in categories! These work like very powerful folders to organize your articles. Categories can contain their own information and have their own presentation page, which presents the articles nested in a category.

 

The Articles & Categories interface allows you to manage both categories and articles in your world. It’s a good place to get an overview of all your articles. You can find a full guide for Categories here.

 

For guidance on which categories you should create, and how to create a system or organizing your worldbuilding, read Tips for creating a great category tree on World Anvil.

 

How to start worldbuilding?

If you’re not sure how to start worldbuilding, check out our “How to start Worldbuilding” which takes you from an empty world to a rich setting of people, places, history and cultures! Even better, it’ll guide you through the World Anvil features one-by-one as you create your own setting.

  Go to the How to start worldbuilding course  

Other World Anvil Article FAQs!

Looking for answers? We have the most frequently asked Article questions here!

 

How do I…

• edit the article tree of my world? Your article tree in Articles and Categories is also the article tree of your world, which shows up on your homepage! Rearranging your articles and categories there will rearrange the world tree. Learn more about Categories here.
• co-write articles with other people? You need co-authors… and we have them! You can give co-authors different permissions for your world, depending on how much you want them to be able to access. Learn about coauthors here.
• use secrets in my articles? The easiest way is to use Secrets! You can also follow the workflow for secrets in your world!
• show my private articles to certain people? Learn about subscriber groups.
• create my own article templates? You can’t create your own article templates from scratch, but you can customize article templates for your world. This is useful for cementing a house-style for your world. Learn about customized article templates.

 

If your question isn’t here then you can:

• Search through the LEARN section for more guides
• Let us know at contact[at]worldanvil.com
• Ask fellow Anvilites on the community Discord #help channel!