Colons Edit

Highlight: Use colons to initiate closely-related content that follows.

Colons in introductory phrases

Include a colon at the end of a phrase or sentence that list. The text preceding the colon must distinctly stand alone as a complete sentence.

Examples


Not recommended:
The settings are:

  • Site title
  • Tagline
  • WordPress Address (URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org)



Recommended:
The settings that can be changed are as follows:

  • Site title
  • Tagline
  • WordPress Address (URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org)


For more information, see Lists.

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Colons in titles and headings

When you use a colon in a title or heading, capitalize the word following it.

Examples

Not recommended: Getting started with WordPress hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same.: introduction

Recommended: Getting started with WordPress hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same.: Introduction

Not recommended: Recommended settings for benchmarking: new updates this month

Recommended: Recommended settings for benchmarking: New updates this month

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Colons within sentences

In general, when you use a colon in a sentence, lowercase the following word. For more information, see Capitalization.

Examples

Recommended: Things that are encouraged: overall simplicity of the document; brief and concise sentences; and using conditional phrases.

Recommended: You have three options: copy the file, move it or delete it.

Exceptions

  • Capitalize the word after the colon if it is a proper noun.
    Example
    Recommended: You can install WordPress on one of the following operating systems: Windows, macOS, or Linux.
  • Capitalize the word after the colon if it is a quote.
    Example
    Recommended: What does it mean if I see a message saying: “Error Code 345. Do you want to continue?”

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Bold text preceding colon

If non-italic text preceding a colon is bold, then make the colon bold too.

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Code text preceding colon

Don’t include a colon in text preceding code, code back-ticks (`), or a <code> tag unless it is part of the code.

For more information about code formatting, see Code examples and Code in text.

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Additional Resources

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