So what exactly are you capable of doing with your plain ol’ black text on a white background? Here, let us show you! (All of the examples below go through your visual editor toolbar one icon at a time).
Bold
Italic
Strikethrough (Don’t use this very often, unless you’re a heavy blog writer (or an English teacher) and do it to make a specific point).
Bulleted list
- Item #1
- Subitem (Uses the indent tool, see below)
- Item #2
- Item #3
Numbered list
- Item #1
- Subitem (Uses the indent tool, see below. By the way, this isn’t Word, it’s WordPress, and it won’t do the fancy outline format you learned in school, sorry).
- Item #2
- Item #3
To be or not to be, that is the question. [Or in this case, the quote].
~ Shakespeare
Left-aligned
Center-aligned
Right-aligned
Unlinked (This isn’t linked to anything because I broke the link. Hence the broken link/chain icon. Don’t try to click on it. It won’t work).
Insert more (Useful in some blog posting situations. You won’t see anything on the full post page, but if you’re viewing this post from our home page or on a category page, you’ll see a “Continue Reading” link, or something like it, right here. If you DO see the link, please click on it so you can see the rest of this post).
Distraction free writing mode (Have ADD? This icon gets rid of everything except the visual editor).
Kitchen sink (Adds another level of fun, literally. Click on it to get the second toolbar and everything below).
*Paragraph through Heading 6 is found in the drop-down menu.
Paragraph text (Looks boring, I mean, normal)
Address (To be used only for addresses, and no, it does not have to be used for addresses).
Worship Times 1596 Moraine Circle Steamboat Springs, CO 80487Preformatted (can't think of any practical use for this, but maybe you can)
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Heading 4
Heading 5
Heading 6
(Be sure to check out headings in different themes – they can be quite a bit different from each other).
Underline (Why this one isn’t with the others, I have no idea).
Full-aligned (i.e. justified – I don’t recommend this unless you plan on doing some heavy edits to make this visually appealing. I’m going to write some more to fill out space so you can see the justification happen. Don’t get me wrong, this can be very useful, until you have a long word like antidisestablishmentarianism. See all that ugly spacing in the line above?)
Colors (PLEASE use sparingly! Users do not want to see a million colors. Also be sure not to make something that is the same color as a link when it’s not a link. Really, you don’t need colors. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise).
Paste as Plain Text (Extremely useful when copying text from other sources, but you will have to edit paragraph breaks by adding them in or deleting them).
Paste from Word (If you are copying and pasting from Word, this is very helpful in retaining some of the formatting).
Remove formatting (Helpful if you want to start from a clean slate but don’t want to recopy or retype everything).
© ∂ β → æ Looking for a special character? Doing some Greek or Latin? Here they are!
Indent left
Indent right (use these on bulleted lists)
Indent right x2
Undo
Redo
Help
Some useful tips:
- If you can avoid copying/pasting, it’s much less stressful just to use the built-in WordPress visual editor as-is.
- Want to see how we did something? Edit this page and start clicking icons or go to the Text tab to see the HTML.
- Shift+Enter gives you a single line break instead of a double.
- Look at the top-right of this box – click on the “Text” tab. This is the HTML view of your visual editor. Don’t break anything! (J/K) If you want a line going across your page, put <hr /> in the appropriate location, and click Update.
Do you have questions about how to do something in your visual editor? Do you have other tips and tricks that you’ve found useful? Send us a support ticket or contact us!