Steps to Edit the WordPress Visual Editor
This article is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. This post will show you how to quickly and efficiently edit your WordPress site using the WordPress Visual Editor.
You had to edit your website in HTML code back then. WordPress software makes it easy to edit your website.
You can use the Visual Editor to edit and write content in WordPress.com hosted blogging software. It is very similar to Word or other processors. Here’s how to use it.
The Toolbar
Let’s start with the first row.
- The first icon represents a styling drop-down menu that allows you to adjust the style of your content.
- The B is the bold icon. This will make your text bold by clicking on it.
- The I is for italics. Clicking this will highlight your text.
- Bullet List Creates an ordered or bulleted listing
- 123 is a numbered, ordered list.
- Use the “quote” icon to create a block quotation. Click the block quote icon to indent your text.
- These three icons are used to indicate alignment. These icons represent alignment.
- You can link to and unlink text from another page or website by using the link and unlink icons
- You can insert more to create a break on the page that will give you a brief preview of your post listings. This tool can affect the functionality of your theme.
- The toolbar toggle hides/shows the second row tools for formatting and editing your content
- By removing the sidebar, lets you edit and create content on your full screen.
Okay, let’s look at the second row.
- ABC The strike-through icon. This icon is used to indicate errors or modifications to your post.
- When you click, the “dash” will place a horizontal line where your cursor is.
- A drop-down menu allows you to change your text’s color.
- The Clipboard – Paste plain text box Inserts text from another editor and removes formatting.
- Eraser is a tool to remove formatting from a specific group of text.
- Omega: Select it from the list to insert a custom character, such as the trademark sign or copyright sign.
- Indent and Outdent are two ways to indent or outdent your text.
- Left Arrow – Undo an Action
- Redo an action with the right arrow
- Question mark – A visual editor help menu that answers any questions about the visual editor.
Editing text
Functionally, the page and post text editors are identical. This tutorial will show you how to edit both pages and posts.
Click on the Pages, Posts buttons in the dashboard. Click on the title of the post that you wish to edit, hover over it and click Edit in the Action Menu.
Click on the area you want to add text to the page. A cursor will then appear. Start typing. You can add formatting options by highlighting the text and clicking the icon in the visual editor toolbar.
To make your text bolder, for example, highlight the word/words you want bolded, and then click on the bold button in the text editor toolbar.
You will get a rough idea of the layout of your page or post from the editor. To see the exact layout of your page before it is published, click Preview or Publish. Your content will be immediately added to your website.
Add Paragraphs
Let’s now look at how to add a paragraph with the style options in the toolbar. To begin, make sure that you’re using the visual editor. Click on the tab labeled Visible in the upper right corner of the text editor.
Next, click on the Toolbar toggle icon to reveal the entire toolbar. The dropdown menu will appear to the left of the toolbar and provide styling options.
Highlight the text that you wish to convert into a paragraph, and then choose Paragraph in the styling options. To preview the page before publishing, click Preview or click to publish the content instantly.
Add heading
Heading styles give viewers a better visual representation to what the most important points are in your pages or posts. They also help search engines find the relevant content on your site, which will improve your visibility.
Make sure you are creating headings in the post editor by clicking on the Show Kitchen Sink button at the top of the content toolbar.
You will notice that Paragraph is the default styling. You can highlight the text that you wish to change and then use the dropdown menu to choose a different style.
WordPress default offers six heading styles to highlight points in your content and separate topics from one another. The most important heading is the first. Each subsequent heading can be scaled down incrementally. Once your content has been formatted the way you want it to appear on your website, save or publish it.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks allow you to link one word or group of words to another page, post or page on your website or any other web page.
Highlight the words or phrases you wish to create hyperlinks from the text editor and then click the Create or Edit Link icons in the toolbar. The popup dialog box will ask you to enter the URL of the page you wish to link to. When you click the link, simply type or paste the URL that you want your visitors to go to. When hovered over, the title can be used for more information about your link.
You can choose to have the page open in your current tab or window, or open a new tab by checking the box below the title. Here are some options to enter a page you wish to link from your website.
Navigate down to the search box if you want to link to a page on your website. You can start typing the title of the page you want to link to in the Search box. A list of pages will appear for you to choose from. The URL and Title fields will automatically appear when you click on the page or post that you wish to link to.
The Add link button will add the link. To delete a link click on it in the text editor and then select the unlink icon from the toolbar. To preview the changes, click Preview or Update. The changes will be immediately available.
Lists
Your site can benefit from creating lists within posts and pages. This allows content to be clearly distinguished from the rest of the posts. It also makes the page more appealing visually.
Simply click the Bulleted List link in the formatting toolbar and begin to type the items that you want in your list. To complete your list, click the bulleted List button once more.
Click the Numbering Button to create an ordered or number list. Type the items you want to add to your list. To complete the list, click the Numbering Button again.
To preview your changes before publishing, click on the Preview link. To make your content available immediately, click Publish and Update.
Embed
WordPress allows you to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr. Simply copy the URL of the video and place it in your post. WordPress will recognize the URL and insert the video in your post.
You will need to create a brief expression if you wish to add a video to the text. Type “[” and “embed” before the URL. Then, add a “]”. Next, type your URL followed by “/embed”, and then “[“
As such:
This tells WordPress it is a video and not just random text. You can customize embed tags on some sites to control how your link appears in your posts. Copy the code and then go to the tab of your editor. Paste the code wherever you want the content to appear.
To preview your post, click Preview after you’re done. To publish your post, click Update or Publish.
Next steps
The best thing about WordPress Visual editor is the built-in code. It makes it super easy to create posts exactly how you want them. You can play with it. You can open a draft and make all kinds of changes and edits until you are comfortable using the visual editor.
You can then check how to utilize the Media library for images and videos that you want to add to your post.
- Initial Settings Using The WordPress Dashboard
- How to Use WordPress Pages + Posts
- Introduction to Categories and Tags
- How to Use the WordPress Visual Editor
- Working with the WordPress Media Library
- Working with Images in WordPress
- Image placement in WordPress Visual Editor
- How to Use Menus in WordPress
- Working with widgets in WordPress
- Introduction to WordPress Themes
- Introduction to WordPress Plugins
- How to Keep WordPress Updated Easily
- Installing and Choosing Essential WordPress Plugins
