About MEDIAWIKI Files
MediaWiki Markup
MediaWiki markup is the wikitext syntax used by Wikipedia and thousands of MediaWiki-powered wikis. It provides formatting for links, tables, templates, categories, and references, powering one of the largest collaborative content systems.
Family
Documents & Text
Extension
.mediawiki
MIME Type
text/x-mediawiki
Can Use As
HOW MEDIAWIKI
CAME TO BE.
MediaWiki markup is the wikitext syntax used by Wikipedia and the tens of thousands of wikis powered by the MediaWiki software. Magnus Manske wrote the original "Phase II" PHP code in 2001-2002, which the Wikimedia Foundation renamed MediaWiki in 2003. The syntax is a unique blend: double brackets for internal links `[[like this]]`, double curly braces for templates `{{like this}}`, lists via leading asterisks, and HTML-ish tags for complex formatting.
Wikipedia’s 60 million+ articles across 300+ language editions are all stored in MediaWiki markup. Dozens of wiki hosts (Fandom, WikiLeaks, OpenStreetMap Wiki) and tens of thousands of self-hosted MediaWiki instances rely on .mediawiki or .wiki files. The format is deliberately peculiar — parsing it is famously hard because valid syntax depends on context (templates recursively expand, and templates can define new syntax). Parsoid, the Wikimedia HTML parser, is essentially a dedicated research project.
CURIOSITIES &
TRIVIA.
Wikipedia's 60+ million articles across 300 languages are all stored in MediaWiki markup — the largest unified corpus of wikitext on the planet.
The original MediaWiki code was written by Magnus Manske in 2001-2002 as "Phase II" — replacing an earlier Perl "Phase I".
Templates are the killer feature — double curly braces expand to reusable blocks, making Wikipedia's info boxes possible.
Parsing MediaWiki markup is famously hard — Parsoid, the HTML renderer, is a purpose-built research project that took years.
Fandom (formerly Wikia) hosts over 350 000 wikis on MediaWiki — fan communities from video games to obscure TV shows.
STRENGTHS &
LIMITATIONS.
Strengths
- Powers Wikipedia — battle-tested at planet scale.
- Templates enable reusable content blocks.
- Internal links, categories, and interwiki references work out of the box.
- Huge existing tooling and translation ecosystem.
Limitations
- Parsing is notoriously hard — context-sensitive by design.
- Authoring requires learning the unique syntax.
- Lacks standardization — no formal spec, just the MediaWiki implementation.
- Markdown has eroded wiki use cases for smaller projects.
Typical Sizes & Weights
Short Wikipedia article source
5-30 KB
Long Wikipedia article with templates
50-300 KB
Full Wikipedia XML dump
~20 GB compressed
Technical Specifications
- MIME type
- text/x-wiki
- Extensions
- .mediawiki, .wiki
- Parser
- MediaWiki core + Parsoid (HTML)
- Encoding
- UTF-8
- Canonical user
- Wikipedia + Wikimedia sister projects
CONVERT FROM
MEDIAWIKI
CONVERT TO
MEDIAWIKI
Common Use Cases
Wikipedia editing, MediaWiki sites, collaborative documentation
Related Formats
Popular comparisons
MEDIAWIKI vs PDF
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
MEDIAWIKI vs DOCX
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
MEDIAWIKI vs ODT
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
MEDIAWIKI vs TXT
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
MEDIAWIKI vs MD
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
MEDIAWIKI vs HTML
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
Popular MEDIAWIKI conversions
The most-requested destinations when starting from MEDIAWIKI.
Frequently Asked Questions about MEDIAWIKI
Frequently Asked Questions
MEDIAWIKI (MediaWiki Markup) is a document format used to store paginated text, with optional formatting, tables, images, hyperlinks, headers and footers. It sits in the documents & text family and is typically associated with a specific office suite or publishing pipeline that defined the format and ships the canonical reader.
Modern office suites — Microsoft Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice Writer, Apple Pages — open most MEDIAWIKI files with reasonable fidelity. If your installed software does not support MEDIAWIKI, convert to DOCX or PDF first using KaijuConverter; both open in virtually every reader, including free online viewers.
Upload the MEDIAWIKI to KaijuConverter and pick DOCX, PDF, ODT, RTF, HTML, Markdown, or plain text. Our pipeline runs LibreOffice headlessly plus pandoc for text formats — the same engines behind professional document pipelines. Styles, tables, images, and hyperlinks survive the conversion intact.
Yes, to a high degree. Standard fonts, headings, lists, tables, images, hyperlinks and page structure transfer cleanly. Custom fonts substitute to the closest match if not embedded; obscure layout features unique to MEDIAWIKI (frames, legacy macros) may flatten to static content in the target format.