Just Write

Let’s say your new Word­Press site has been set up, and you know how to login. Some­thing called the “Dash­board” is on the screen. Now what?

This is an intro­duc­tion to a few of the basics to using WordPress.

Write a New Post

(This arti­cle is writ­ten for Word­Press 2.5 and sim­i­lar later versions.)

The first thing you notice is a big orange bar that says “Right Now,” and has but­tons for “Write a New Page” and “Write a New Post”.

That last one sounds good, so click it: “Write a New Post”.

Now there’s a “Title” box (that one seems self-​explanatory), and a “Post” box (and some other stuff down below). Type a title in the obvi­ous place, and then let’s con­sider this “Post” box, with its asso­ci­ated tool buttons.

First, to the right of the label “Post” are two tabs: “Visual” and “HTML”. Even­tu­ally, you’ll want to use the HTML set­ting, so your code is as good as your prose.

For now, con­firm that “Visual” is selected, and start typ­ing your post.

For­mat­ting Buttons

There are sev­eral pre­sen­ta­tional but­tons, in a row along the top of the “Post” box. You can select some text, then click these to make it bold, italic, etc. (Again, this pro­duces HTML code that is pretty messy, so you’ll want to leave this “Visual” set­ting behind someday.)

Three of these for­mat­ting but­tons, I just don’t rec­om­mend for non-​technical peo­ple: Insert Image, Insert More Tag, and Show/​Hide Kitchen Sink. So if you want to insert an image, instead use the “Add Media” but­tons just above the main for­mat­ting buttons:

Add Media

With these but­tons, you can add an image, video, audio, or other media.

Add an Image: To add an image into your post, place the cur­sor about where you want the image to be. Click “Add an Image” (not the but­ton with the pic­ture of a tree, rather the but­ton next to “Add media”).

Remem­ber, do not use the “Insert/​edit image” because it’s a bit more geeky, and assumes the image is already uploaded to the inter­net (rather than on your computer).

A pop-​up thing will … pop up. (Tech­ni­cally, this is called a “modal win­dow.” Now you can impress peo­ple at par­ties with your tech­ni­cal knowledge.)

To select an image on your com­puter, click “Browse…” and select it from the right folder (“My Pic­tures,” for exam­ple). After click­ing Okay or Open, click “Upload.” Then, you may wish to edit the title, cap­tion or descrip­tion. And you may wish to delete the “Link URL.” Next, select an “Align­ment” and “Size,” and click “Insert into Post.”

Add Video and Add Audio use sim­i­lar methods.

Add Media is also sim­i­lar, but can be used to upload a PDF doc­u­ment. If you do upload a PDF, make sure to keep the link address that is auto­mat­i­cally gen­er­ated, since that is the link to the PDF doc­u­ment.

Cat­e­gories

Depend­ing on which Theme you select for your Word­Press site, most of the options below the main post won’t be rel­e­vant yet.

The one that’s prob­a­bly impor­tant is “Cat­e­gories” (or per­haps “Tags”), because your designer may have used them to dic­tate on which Page this post should go. For exam­ple, a post with cat­e­gory “Blog” will go on your blog page, and a post with cat­e­gory “Arti­cles” will go on your arti­cles page, etc.

When you’re done with your post, click “Pub­lish” and take a look at your site. If all looks well, hooray!

If not, just go to the “Man­age” tab (and the “Posts” sub-​tab), and click the post to edit it.

Next Steps

Future arti­cles may cover other aspects of main­tain­ing your Word­Press site. Till then, enjoy pub­lish­ing your content.