Quick updates to pages and posts can be made from the Quick Edit menu on the page/post list. For substantive updates, the content edit screen is used. You can open the editing screen for a page by clicking the page title in the page list. You can also navigate to the page on the website and, if you are logged in, click the Edit Page link in the toolbar.

The edit screen is broken into two major sections: page content on the left and “meta data” on the right. After making edits to a page, remember to click the Update button or your changes may be lost!

Title

The large field at the top left of the editing work area is the page title. This will be displayed both at the top of the page and on the web browser’s title bar or tab. Ttitles should be descriptive, but as short as possible.

Visual Editor

The visual editor (or WYSIWYG Editor) is beneath the title and is the primary way you will enter content into your pages and posts. Its use is very similar to standard word processing programs such as Microsoft Word or Apple Pages. Text is entered in the large text area under the tool bar. Line breaks will be automatically converted into paragraphs. Commonly used options are shown in the top icon bar. Clicking the “Kitchen Sink” button on the far right will reveal more text formatting options.

In the second level of icons (revealed by the Kitchen Sink button) you will find a drop down list allowing you to change a section of text to a different type, for example from a paragraph to a heading.

Linking

A common task for editors on the world wide web is creating hyperlinks to other documents. To create a hyperlink, select the portion of text you would like to use and click the link button in the editor toolbar.

You will be presented with the insert/edit link window. To create a link to an external site (such as http://www.osu.edu) simply enter the site’s URL in the URL field and click the Add Link button.

To link to a page within your site, expand the “Or link existing content” section, select the title of the page to which you would like to link, and click the Add Link button.

To remove a link, highlight the link text and click the Remove Link button in the tool bar.

Images

Text is great, but adding images to your content can help add visual interest to your pages and communicate your message to visitors. WordPress manages images using a tool called the Media Library. To insert images into your pages/posts:

1. 

   Image window – click for to view full size

   Place your cursor where you would like to insert the image.

2. Click the Add Media button above the editor icon bar.
3. In the Insert Media window, click the Media Library tab to use an image that has already been uploaded to the server. Click the Upload Files tab to add a new image stored on your computer. You can upload new images by dragging them into the upload window or by clicking the Select Files button.
4. Once the image is selected, You can enter its Ttitle, Caption, and ALT text in the fields to the right. (You may have to scroll to see all available options). Caption text will be displayed under the image when it is rendered on the page. ALT text will be read aloud to visitors using audio assistive technology. You should always specify a caption or ALT text for images that are not purely decorative.
5. Set the image alignment (left, center, right, or none) under Display Settings. You should also select Link to Media File and an appropriate size for the image,
6. Click the Insert into Page/Post button to add the image to your content

Once added, click on the image to reveal its editing controls. Click the pencil icon to edit the image details such as caption text, size, or alignment. Click the X icon to remove the image. Use the “grab handles” on the corners/sides to dynamically resizes the image in the editor.

Featured Image

A featured image can be set in the right column, beneath the Page Attributes section. The featured image is used in post listings and can optionally be shown as the first image in the content of a post. You can configure this behavior in the theme settings.

Embedding Video

It’s easy to display an embedded video from YouTube on your site right along with standard text and images. First, open the video you would like to embed in your browser and copy the URL from the address bar. Next simply paste the URL into the visual editor at the point you would like the video to appear. It will not be displayed in the editor, but you will see the video after updating and visiting the page.

Linking to Files

You may need to host files such as PDF flyers or MS Word meeting minutes on your website and provide a download link from within your pages. This can be accomplished in much the same way as inserting an image.

1. Follow steps 1-3 in the Images section to upload the file.
2. Add a title using the fields on the left. The title text will be used as the hypertext in the link.
3. Select Link to Media File and click Insert into Post.

A link will be created pointing to your file using the text you added in the title field.

Text Mode

The visual editor tries to make the editing experience a little more pleasant by hiding away the messy details of the HTML code used to render the final web page. This lets you focus on content rather than technical details. However, sometimes you might need finer-grained control. To edit the underlying HTML and WordPress tags directly, click the Text tab on the upper right corner of the visual editor. You can switch back at any time by clicking the Visual tab. Note that switching back to Visual mode may reformat some of the manual changes you made in text mode.

Sidebar Content

The sidebar content section provides an easy way to add rich text to the sidebar region of your theme without using widgets. Any text or images entered into the Sidebar Content visual editor will be added to the side bar for the page or post automatically.

Publishing Status

The “Publish” section in the right column contains various publishing options for the page.

• Status: Published (visible to the public) or Draft (still in progress, not visible unless logged in)
• Visibility: Public, password protected, or private (only visible to logged in users). Password protected pages will only be visible to a visitor if they enter the correct password.
• Revisions: View past saved copies of this page and revert to a previous version if necessary.
• Published on: The date the page was originally published. Set a future date here to automatically publish this post/page on that date. Until then it will remain in draft form.

The publishing status section also contains the Update button, which saves any changes made during your editing session.

Categories

Categories are used to separate posts into different types of content. For example, you might want to have both a blog and a news section for your site. Both of these needs can be filled by using posts, but you need a way to differentiate a blog post from a news article. By creating Blog and News categories, you can assign posts to the appropriate type.

Once you have created post categories, you can assign them to posts using either the quick edit form or the post edit page. You can view a list of all posts in a category by navigating to http://yoursite.com/category/slug

Tags

Tags provide a more dynamic way to describe your posts than categories. You can tag a post by entering tags in the free-form tags field. WordPress will search for tags you have used on other posts and suggest those to you as you type. Enter multiple tags at once by separating each tag with a comma.

When viewing a post, its tags will be listed on the page as clickable links. Clicking a tag will open a page listing other posts with the same tag.

Tags are great for grouping content around topics across categories or within a single category. For example, you could tag all News category posts that relate to Buckeye football with a football tag.