{{Babel}} is for showing the languages that you know, as well as the operating system, keyboard layout, web browser, desktop environment, and text editor that you are most comfortable with. Details of how to use it for its original purpose—showing the languages that you know—are at Wikipedia:Babel.

{{Babel|<box1>|<box2>|<box3>...}}

Parameters can be added using the {{!}} and {{=}} tricks:

{{Babel|0RR{{!}}border-c{{=}}red}}

The Babel box prefixes its arguments with "User ", so it will work with the User: namespace:

{{Babel|:UBX/Userboxes/Thank Button}}

Custom styling

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To customize the appearance you can add the optional parameters

|align=left
to display the babel box on the left side of the screen rather than the default right
|header=header
change header, default is Wikipedia:Babel
|footer=footer
change wiki markup for footer, default is [[:Category:Wikipedians by language|Search user languages]] (which appears as Search user languages)
|bordercolor=color
color of the border, default is #99B3FF
|color=color
background color, default is white
|textcolor=color
text color, default is black
|left=pixels
left margin in pixels, default is 1
|bottom=pixels
bottom margin in pixels, default is 0.5
|solid=pixels
solid border width, default is 1
|width=pixels
width of the box, default is 248
|extra-css=css-code
any other custom formatting

Columns and separators

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  • Use ! to start a new column after that point
  • Use - to insert a blank row
  • Use head to insert a header; use head-m to insert a header without text
  • Use line to insert a horizontal ruler separator

For example,

{{Babel
| align  = left
| header = Userboxes
| color  = yellow
| head           | en    | tl-1       | ru-2
| line           | pas   | :UBX/1337  | !
| head{{!}}Other | 1RR   | help desk  | -
| line           | happy | wikipedia/WikiFairy
}}

Produces:

Copying template to other wikis

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The page you are now reading is the /doc subpage for the actual Babel template. If you click "edit this page", you will see invocation of Lua Module:Babel that makes the Babel boxes work. What you're now reading is just documentation for that code, transcluded inside "<noinclude>" tags so it doesn't interfere with the computer code.

In order to use Babel boxes in another Wikimedia project, you need both the template and the module. Click "view source" and copy all the contents, including the computer code. Create a page called "Template:Babel" on the other Wikimedia project and put the content into it. Do the same for the module.

You will also need to copy over a bunch of files with names like "Template:User en", "Template:User en-1", "Template:User fr", and so on. Once you've done that, users can put, for example, "{{Babel|en-1|fr}}" on their user page, and the Babel boxes will be displayed.