Help:Internet Explorer

Older versions of Internet Explorer (IE), especially versions 6 and 7 (commonly abbreviated IE6 and IE7) have limitations in their CSS and HTML support. As Wikipedia expands its use of CSS3 and HTML5, support for these old browsers will become more limited, leaving older browsers unable to render a page as the editors intend. A number of specialized fixes for these older browsers are being removed as the MediaWiki software is being updated.

Where possible, users should upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 or higher, or install another modern browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome. We understand that some users do not have a choice, either by limitations of their system, corporate policy, or compatibility with other software.

In some instances, your CSS can be edited (if you are logged in to Wikipedia with a username and password) to add some level of support.

JavaScript

As of September 2014, JavaScript has been disabled for IE6 and IE7.

• Issues: Without updates, IE6 and IE7 have increasing security issues which can lead to vulnerabilities.
• Usage: JavaScript is used extensively on Wikipedia
  • Custom JavaScript
  • Tabs on Preferences
  • Edit toolbar
  • CharInsert toolbar which adds symbols
• Fix: none; except upgrading to IE8 or higher or using a different browser.

No backlinks for citations

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T93319

IE9 does not show backlinks (^ ^{a b}) in the references section.

• Accessibility changes to the CSS for Cite added user-select: none; to the mw-cite-backlink class. This is not supposed to be supported by IE9 but, apparently it causes the content to not display. IE8 and below do not support this property at all; IE10 and above support it properly.
• Fix:

.mw-cite-backlink,
.cite-accessibility-label {
   display: inline
}

Blank pages when printing

When printing with Internet Explorer 7, some pages may be blank except for the header and footer; this can be seen in the browser print preview.

• Issues: The style sheets have rules to adjust the line height for improved readability with superscript and subscript text, including references. IE7 apparently has problems with the line-height CSS property. This issue appears to be resolved in Internet Explorer 8 and above.
• Fix:

@media print {
sup, sub, p, .documentDescription { line-height: normal; }
}

Image and text spacing

For examples, see Help:Internet Explorer/IE space issue.

Where images and text are intermixed, large gaps may appear in the text.

• IE6 and IE7 do not properly handle image thumbs mixed with text.
• Fix: none; except upgrading to IE8 or higher or using a different browser.

Columns

The CSS3 Columns module enables content to be divided into columns. Used in {{reflist}} for references; {{div col}} for other content.

• Issues: IE6, IE7, IE8, and IE9 do not support CSS columns.
• Fix: None; except upgrading to IE10 or higher or using a different browser.

<q>

<q> was formerly styled as italic for IE6 and IE7. This was resolved with the deployment of MediaWiki 1.25/wmf19; see T89595

<q>...</q> is used to mark text as quotations. It is used to format short works in Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 and elsewhere. The element is styled in quote marks through MediaWiki:Common.css using the quotes property.

• IE6 and IE7 do not support the quotes property, thus show without quote marks.
• Fix: None; except upgrading to IE8 or higher or using a different browser.

Testing

Virtual machines with various versions of IE are available from Modern.IE.