Template:Nuclide/doc

Usage

The Nuclide templates are to be used for displaying nuclide, isotope and element symbols, specifically in formulae. They can optionally link to the page for the specific nuclide, isotope or element.

Here is a list of the various templates and some sample output for carbon-12, with and without links enabled:

Template name	Without link	With link
{{Element}}	C	C
{{SimpleNuclide2}}	12 C	12 C
{{Nuclide}}†	12 6C	12 6C
{{ComplexNuclide2}}	12 6C 6	12 6C 6

^†Note: These templates used to be named {{SimpleNuclide}} and {{ComplexNuclide}}. Improved versions are now available, using the same names, but appending a "2". The old templates did not have the link=yes option described below, but would add a link if the first argument was "link". The content of old templates have been replaced with simple "wrappers" that invoke the new templates, passing the link=yes argument to the new templates if their own first argument is indeed link. Please do not use the old templates anymore and feel free to replace their use in existing pages with the new ones, by appending a 2 to the template name and replace |link| with |link=yes|. Once all usage of these old templates has been removed from Wikipedia (see Category:Pages using old Template:SimpleNuclide link syntax and Category:Pages using old Template:ComplexNuclide link syntax, respectively), they should be deleted to prevent further use.

Arguments

All the templates accept the same arguments.

1	The name of the element for which to return the isotope symbol
2 (optional)	The mass number for the isotope. The defaults value is the mass number of the most common or stable isotope. This argument is ignored by {{Element}}, which does not display the mass number.
3 (optional)	A string to indicate a nuclear isomer ("m", "m2", etc...) where the nucleus in an excited state. This argument does not require the mass number to be supplied. This argument is ignored by {{Element}}, which does not display the mass number.
link=yes (optional)	Automatically creates a link to the relevant page for the element or isotope. This page may not yet exist for some isotopes, in that case you are encouraged to create the page or create a redirect to “Isotopes of element name”.
anti=yes (optional)	Specify the element is made of anti-matter and that the symbol should therefore be marked with an overline.
charge=... (optional)	Specify the charge of an ionized atom.
q=... (optional)	Specify the quantity of the atom (useful in chemical formulas, only available for {{Element}}).
m (optional)	Specifies that the atoms is a nuclear isomer.

Examples

{{SimpleNuclide2|Carbon}}	12 C
{{SimpleNuclide2|Carbon|14}}	14 C
{{SimpleNuclide2|link=yes|Carbon}}	12 C
{{SimpleNuclide2|anti=yes|Carbon}}	12 C
{{SimpleNuclide2|link=yes|Carbon|14}}	14 C
{{Element|Carbon|12|charge=2+}}	C2+
{{SimpleNuclide2|Carbon|12|m}}	12m C
{{ComplexNuclide2|link=yes|anti=yes|Carbon|12|m|charge=2+}}	12m 6C2+ 6

See User:SkyLined/List of nuclei for a list of all elements supported by these templates.

Dependencies

• All of these templates use {{ProtonsForElement}} to check if the element name is valid and, if the link=yes argument is used, check if you're not using the generic "X" or "element".
• Some of these templates use {{ProtonsForElement}} to get the element number for a given element.
• Some of these templates use {{NeutronsForElement}} to get the default number of neutrons for a given element.
• Some of these templates use both {{ProtonsForElement}} and {{NeutronsForElement}} to get the default mass number for a given element.
• These templates use {{LinkForElement}} to get the page to link to if the link=yes argument is used.
• These templates use {{Physics particle}} to create the HTML output in order to maintain a similar look and feel for all physics symbols.

Incorrect use

Pages that use these templates incorrectly will be added to Category:Pages with incorrect nuclide templates use. Please check there occasionally to make sure there aren't any.

Here are some samples of error messages:

{{Nuclide |Blabla}}	Error in Template:ProtonsForElement: unknown element Blabla .Error in Template:SymbolForElement: unknown element Blabla
{{Nuclide |Aluminum}}
{{Element |Element |link=yes}}