WordPress websites: Creating posts
As of November, 2008, the WordPress team is preparing to release a new version of WordPress, in which the administrative panel of the software will be upgraded and will appear differently than it currently does. Due to this, we're not going to provide a tutorial with screenshots currently. However, you may wish to read some important notes below. Once the WordPress has completed the upgrade, we'll come back and provide a full tutorial.
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Important: The Visual Editor
WordPress provides a powerful tool for use when creating posts and pages, called the "Visual Editor." When you click on the "Write" link, on the Dashboard, you'll be presented with some boxes to fill in, the first being "Title," and the second being "Post." You'll notice that there are some gray buttons which look a lot like something you'd see in Microsoft Word. These buttons constitute the "Visual Editor," which basically means that you don't have to worry about HTML - the editor formats the code for you behind the scenes, allowing you to preview what the text will actually look like.
However, there is a caveat to using this visual editor. In trying to help you avoid any code at all, it will keep any formatting you copy and paste into it. This means, if you create a post in Microsoft Word, and use the "Comic Sans" font, and then copy your text into this visual editor, the editor will keep the "Comic Sans" font, and that font will then show up on the actual post itself.
This is bad, because we want our blog to appear uniform in nature, and not have a variety of differently sized, formatted, and colored fonts. We want one font to rule them all, if you will.
So, to avoid a painfully ugly situation, we have to use one simple step. You only have to follow this procedure if you're copying text from another program. If you write your text directly into the WordPress editor, you don't have to worry about this.
If you are copying and pasting text from another program, you must FIRST paste that text into a program called "Microsoft Notepad." (If you're using Apple, you need to use whatever "Notepad" equivalent is provided in your operating system.) You can find this program in two ways:
- Click on the "Start" button in Microsoft Windows, click the "Run" option, and in the box, type "Notepad" and press enter. Notepad will pop open.
- Click on the "Start" button in Microsoft Windows, click "All Programs" then "Accessories." You should see Notepad there. If you don't, follow the instruction above with #1.
Once the program is open, paste your text into the program. Now deselect all the text. Then select all the text (CTRL + A), and copy the text (CTRL + C). Now you can then paste the text into WordPress. You'll notice that any formatting is gone, and you're left with clean, plain text. Use the provided editing buttons, in WordPress, to re-add any formatting.