A QUICK GUIDE TO USING WORDPRESS

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Beverley Simmons
6 years ago
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You can click Dashboard, which is where all of your Blog controls are situated, or you can simply click New, then Post to go straight to the New Post editing page.

1 A QUICK GUIDE TO USING WORDPRESS 1. WRITE A POST You can write a post from the front page of your blog in two ways. First, click on the Blog name button in your task bar at the top of the page: This reveals a drop-down menu. You can click Dashboard, which is where all of your Blog controls are situated, or you can simply click New, then Post to go straight to the New Post editing page. If you click Dashboard, you will see the controls menu on the left side of the page. Click the arrow on the Posts heading, and click Add New. This opens the Add new Post Screen: Add a title, if you want to, and then write your blog post in the main box. You can edit the text using the buttons in the tool bar above the box. These work much the same as in Microsoft Word. 1

2. SAVE A POST TO DRAFT You may not want to publish your post immediately. In this case you can publish it to Draft, or you can set it to be published at a later date.

If you click the blue underlined Edit button next to Publish Immediately, it opens up to look like the picture on the right. Click Save Draft.

2 2. SAVE A POST TO DRAFT You may not want to publish your post immediately. In this case you can publish it to Draft, or you can set it to be published at a later date. Look on the right hand side of the Add New Post page to see the Publish block. At first, it will look like the picture below on the left. If you click the blue underlined Edit button next to Publish Immediately, it opens up to look like the picture on the right. Click Save Draft. This saves your post so you can make any changes, but doesn t publish it to the internet. Only you can see it. If you want to publish later, choose a time and date in the bottom section under Publish Immediately. As you can see, you use the controls in this block to Publish your blog post, Preview it, or delete it to Trash. You can also choose whether your blog is Public or Private, or requires password access. You do this in the middle section under Visibility. 3. EDIT A POST Once your post is in Draft form, you can go back to it anytime and edit it. To edit a post, go to the left hand menu in the Dashboard. Under the Posts heading, click All Posts. This takes you to the All Posts screen. From here you can edit any post that has been made in your blog. Choose the post you want to edit from the list by hovering your mouse over its title. A list pops up with options Edit Quick Edit Trash Preview. Click Edit. See the picture below top see the All Posts screen. 2

THIS IS THE ALL POSTS SCREEN. HOVER YOUR MOUSE OVER THE TITLE OF THE POST TO REVEAL THE EDIT OPTIONS. CLICK EDIT AND YOUR POST WILL NOW OPEN IN THE EDIT SCREEN. 4.

Other types of file are added in the same way. At the top of your text box, above the editing buttons, you can see the Upload/Insert buttons: Hover your mouse over each button to see what it is.

3 THIS IS THE ALL POSTS SCREEN. HOVER YOUR MOUSE OVER THE TITLE OF THE POST TO REVEAL THE EDIT OPTIONS. CLICK EDIT AND YOUR POST WILL NOW OPEN IN THE EDIT SCREEN. 4. ADD FILES TO A POST You can add different types of files to your post, including video, sound, Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, and images. This example shows you how to add an image to your post. Other types of file are added in the same way. At the top of your text box, above the editing buttons, you can see the Upload/Insert buttons: Hover your mouse over each button to see what it is. Insert an image. Insert video. Insert audio. Insert media. Add a poll. Add a form. Click the Insert image button, and the Insert Image dialogue box opens. From here you can choose your picture, and choose some display options for it. 3

This is the Add Image dialogue box. You can see three tabs across the top: From Computer; From URL; Media Library. In this example, we are going to choose an image from the computer.

4 This is the Add Image dialogue box. You can see three tabs across the top: From Computer; From URL; Media Library. In this example, we are going to choose an image from the computer. The From URL option allows you to use a picture from another web page, if you know its web address, or URL. The Media Library option allows you to choose pictures or other media that are already uploaded to your blog. This saves you from having to upload the same file multiple times and is a useful tool. To choose an image, click the Select Files button, and navigate to the file on your computer. When you choose your file, WordPress opens up the dialogue box further, to allow you to add more details: Here you can give your image a title, and add Alternate Text. Alt text will appear when you hover your mouse over the image on a web page. You should do this so that screen readers can detect the image and describe it. Choose meaningful Alt Text. You can also set the alignment, and the size of your image. In this example the image is Medium, and there is no alignment. Once you have made your choices click Insert into Post to see your image in your post. 4

5 This is what the Edit Post page looks like when you insert an image: If you select the image by clicking on it, two small icons appear, as in the picture above. Click on the left hand one to edit the image further, click the other to delete the image. Follow these same instructions to add other media to your blog post. 5. INSERT A HYPERLINK You can insert hyperlinks into your posts to take people to other websites, or other pages in your blog. You can do this in two ways. You can simply write out, or copy and paste, the URL including the http at the beginning. WordPress will automatically recognise this as a web address and insert the hyperlink for you. Alternatively, if you want to add a hyperlink to some text, or to an image, highlight the text, or select the image, then click the chain icon in the editing bar. highlight text, or select an image. The chain icon will only be available when you This brings up the hyperlink dialogue box. 5

6 Put the URL into the box, and add a title. This produces the Alt Text when people hover over the hyperlink. If you want to link to existing pages in your blog click Or link to existing content. This will open up the box and allow you to link to any other pages in your blog. You can choose whether to open your link in a new window or tab by ticking Open link in a new window/tab. If you don t choose this you will move away from your blog page when you click the link. Click Add Link to finish. 6. ADD CATEGORIES To make your blog easier to manage, and to make it easier for readers to find their way around, you should categorise your posts. To add a category, go to your Dashboard, and click Categories under the Posts heading. This brings up the Categories editing page. There is another way to add categories, which you will see shortly. 6

WordPress already has a default category called Uncategorized. Your posts will automatically go under this category, unless you choose otherwise.

7 WordPress already has a default category called Uncategorized. Your posts will automatically go under this category, unless you choose otherwise. To create a category, type a name in the Add New Category box. Below that there is a box called Parent, this allows you to add subcategories. In the page above you can see that there is a Parent category called Photography. Under that, there are several subcategories: Black and white; Colour etc. You know they are subcategories because they have a dash before their name. To add a completely new category, leave the Parent box set to None. To add a subcategory, click the down arrow and choose a category to be the Parent. Once you have created your category, or subcategory, click Add New Category. 6.1 ADD A CATEGORY TO A POST To categorise a post, open the post you want to categorise, or go to the Add New Post page. On the right hand side, you can see the Categories box. To categorise your post, simply add a tick to the box next to whichever category you want. You can add a post to more than one category. 7

Add a tick to a box to choose a category. Here you can see another way to add categories quickly. Click Add New Category, choose a name, and then either add it as a subcategory, or as a new category.

8 Add a tick to a box to choose a category. Here you can see another way to add categories quickly. Click Add New Category, choose a name, and then either add it as a subcategory, or as a new category. To delete a category, go to the Add categories page from the left hand menu in the Dashboard. Hover your mouse over the name of the category to make the edit options appear, and then click Delete. 7. ADD TAGS Tags are used by search engines to find websites, so if you add tags to your blog people are more likely to be able to find your blog in searches. A tag is a single word, or a short phrase that you add to your posts. The word should give an indication of what the post is about. You can add more than one tag. Tags are similar to Categories, but are more specific. You use Categories to organise your posts into broad groups, tags describe your posts in more detail. For example, let s say you are writing a blog post about online security. Your category could be Online Security, and your tags could be: password, anti-virus, virus, spam, spyware, firewall. Or any others you can think of. 8

Separate each word with a comma, otherwise WordPress will assume that different words are one tag. 8.

9 To add tags to your posts, click Tags under the Posts heading in Dashboard sidebar. Or use the Tags box on the right side of the Add New Post page. Separate each word with a comma, otherwise WordPress will assume that different words are one tag. 8. CHECK YOUR SPELLING Before you publish your blog post you should check your spelling. To do this, click the spell check icon on the editing bar. If there are any spelling mistakes, the words are underlined in red. Right click the underlined words to see suggestions for correct spelling. Click the correct word to insert it. 9

9. PUBLISH YOUR POST When you feel ready to publish your post, click Publish in the Publish box to the right of the editing box. Once you click publish, your post will go live on to your blog site.

10 9. PUBLISH YOUR POST When you feel ready to publish your post, click Publish in the Publish box to the right of the editing box. Once you click publish, your post will go live on to your blog site. After you click Publish, you will see a page something like this: Notice the options to view your post, and to edit your post at the top. 10. LEAVE A COMMENT One of the good things about blogs is that they encourage discussion. You can reply to blog posts by either clicking Reply where it appears under a particular post - this allows you to reply to other people s comments too. Or you can scroll to the end of the page to see the box illustrated below. This allows you to leave a reply to the original blog post. Note that the reply function may look different, depending on which Theme the blog is using. 10

11. SETTING UP A WORDPRESS ACCOUNT Setting up an account is easy; all you need is an email address. However, note that there is a difference between WordPress.

11 11. SETTING UP A WORDPRESS ACCOUNT Setting up an account is easy; all you need is an address. However, note that there is a difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is the free, web-based version of WordPress. WordPress.org is for the hosted version, where you download software to your computer, and you need a web-hosting service, which costs money. The.org version will give you greater control over your blog, and tends to be used by organisations. The.com version is sufficient for most people. 11

Wordpress Editor Guide. How to Log in to Wordpress. Depending on the location of the page you want to edit, go to either:

Wordpress Editor Guide. How to Log in to Wordpress. Depending on the location of the page you want to edit, go to either: Wordpress Editor Guide How to Log in to Wordpress Depending on the location of the page you want to edit, go to either: http://www.necc.mass.edu/wp- admin (for the main website) Or http://facstaff.necc.mass.edu/wp-