How to edit a page in PBworks

Please note: This article was written when PBworks was known as PBwiki.  I have edited the article with the new name, but the screenshots still show the name as PBwiki.  This is the only change ... everything I had written is still relevant for today. ~Matthew

When you need to collaborate on a group project, a team wiki can help keep everyone’s thoughts together and make sure everyone is on the same page (literally!).  Wikis are webpages that anyone can edit, or that only a select group of users can edit.  PBworks is popular online wiki system where you can sign up for a basic free wiki to use for your own project.  Editing a wiki is quite simple if you know how to do it, and here I’m going to show you how to edit a page in PBworks (most wikis are similar, so the directions might work for another wiki service as well).  My example screenshots are in Internet Explorer 8, but the directions will be the same in almost any web browser.  I am assuming you already have a wiki.  In this example I am showing my current class team wiki, which you can view (but if you’re not in my team, you can’t edit it … sorry) at http://spring09team8.pbworks.com/.

Ok, so first go to the page:

Then click on the “EDIT” that is on the top left right underneath the name of the page (spring09team8 in this case):

That brings up a little bubble that says “To edit this page, request access to the wiki.”  Then underneath that it says “Already have an account? Log in!”  Click that log in there in that bubble.  That will bring you to the login page:

Here you will enter your email address and password (I put a random email there; I wouldn’t suggest emailing it!), and then click Log in, and voila, you will be at the edit page for your wiki:

Now you are at the editor of the wiki.  If you are used to Microsoft Word or any other word processor, you should feel at home here.  It is just like a simplified word processor.  You can use the buttons on the top row to select bold or italic font, you can change the font size or color, insert a link, or just about anything else.  And if you know how to edit HTML, you can even click the “Source” button and edit the wiki at code level.

When you are finished editing, click the “Save” button at the bottom left corner of the page to save your work.  Or, if you decide to not use what you just wrote, you can click cancel right beside the save button.  And if you do end up messing something up, you can always go back to a previous version of the page as every edit and change is saved in the wiki.  To do that, click the “Page history” link:

This will bring you to a page that has a list of all the revisions of the page you were looking at:

Then you can choose to compare a previous version of a page with the current one, and then revert to that version of the page if you choose.

This should get you well on you way in editing wikis!  Leave a comment below if you have any questions.  Happing wiki-ing!

Thoughts? @reply me on Twitter.