WordPress comes equipped with some great features to allow you to easily format your blog posts and pages without knowing or even seeing the underlying HTML coding.

Here is what the Button bar looks like normally

Here are some of the basics:

Sets selected text  as bold.

Sets selected text as italicized.

Sets selected text as strike-through.

Sets selected text as underlined.

You can toggle to expand the Button Bar for additional options

Toggle on and off the bottom row of options.

Here is the Expanded Button Bar

Hover over each of the buttons in the toolbar has a tool tip that will give a hint as to it’s function when you hover over for a moment to get a general idea of what each one does.

Related Posts

1. How to Create a New Page
2. Overview Dashboard 3.x
3. What is a Widget?

Go to Settings > Writing and the first option is ‘Size of the Post Box’. The default is 10 lines.

I like mine at 30.

I like to be able to easily read and edit more lines.

Related Posts

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: Overview Easy WordPress Websites.

Fundamentally, the WordPress Theme system is a way to “skin” your weblog. Yet, it is more than just a “skin.” Skinning your site implies that only the design is changed. WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the look and presentation of the material on your website.

A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files. A theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software.

I like to think of WordPress, the software as the frame or studs of a house.

themes are the drywall, paint and wallpaper you put on to make everything look nice, to tie everything together.

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of awesome themes that can be applied to a WordPress website.

You can easily do a Google search and find many many.  There are several common styles:

• 2 column with a sidebar on the left side
• 2 column with a sidebar on the right side
• 3 column with two sidebars on the right side
• 3 column with a sidebar on the right and left side

It doesn’t really matter what you choose, you want to find a theme that matches your needs best.   If you are using your WordPress website for a business, you want to look for professional and easy to navigate.   If you are focusing on personal, definitely find some thing fun and exciting.

Let’s get started…

There are 2 really easy ways for applying themes:

Applying the theme by Search

From the Dashboard

Step 1 – Under Appearance, Click on the Add New Theme

Step 2 – Enter keywords in the Search box i.e. technology, Click Search

or put check marks in the Feature Filter box, Click Find Themes

Look through the themes to find one that you like, you can click on preview to see a larger version of the theme.

Step 3 – Click on Install link.

Step 4 – In the pop up window, Click Install Now

Step 5 – Click Activate

You can manage all the themes that you have installed from this page, by clicking on the activate link under each thumbnail.

Applying the theme by Uploading

There is a small task that you need to do first… while you were off goggling for cool new themes, I hope that you found one and downloaded to your computer.  You should have saved it somewhere, you can find it again.

From the Dashboard

Step 1 – Under Appearance, Click on the Add New Theme

Step 2 – Click Upload

Step 3 – Browse to the file that you saved

Step 4 – Click Activate

As you add and try themes they will be stored on this page.

Related Posts

1. How to Create a New Post
2. How to Create New Categories
3. How to add New Links

• Posts are listed in reverse chronological order on the blog home page or on the posts page, depending on how you have set up your website.
• Posts can be found in the Archives, Categories, Recent Posts, and other widgets. Posts are also displayed in the RSS feed of the blog.
• Pages are static and are not listed by date.
• Pages do not use tags or categories. An About page is the classic example.
• Pages are displayed in the sidebar using the Pages widget, and some themes display pages in tabs at the top of the blog.
• There is no limit on the number of posts or pages you can have.
• It’s not possible to “post” to a page. Pages are static entities that only can be edited.

Great examples of pages, would be About Us, Contact Us, Find us, Author profiles:

From the Dashboard

Step 1a – Under the Pages, Click Add New

Step 1b – From the shortcut menu, Click New Page

Step 2 – Create your page

1. Add the Page Title
2. Add the Content, you have all the same formatting options that are available in posts
3. Publish
4. Parent – you can make this a parent or a child, to create a child, click the drop down list and select the parent page (optional)
5. Template – depending on your theme and the page you are creating you may have options for how the page displays, click the drop down to select the option you want (optional)
6. Order – You can manually order the pages.  WordPress uses alphabetical order, you can use numerical if you want to change that order.

Step 3 – Publish

Related Posts

1. How to Create a New Post
2. How to Create New Categories
3. How to add a category to a post

As with other areas you can create categories for all your links, by default WordPress creates a category called “Blgoroll”.  You can change this and add as many as you like.

From the Dashboard

Step 1 – Under Links, Click Add New

Step 2 – Fill in the relevant info

1. Name – This is what will appear in your list.
2. Web Address – this is the actual URL to the website – this can be general to the home page or directly to a specific page.
3. Description – this appears when you hover over the link, depending on the link, it can also appear on the sidebar
4. Categories – you can select from existing categories
5. Add New Category – you can create new categories on the fly
6. Target – This allows you to decide how the link will open. *we recommend “_blank”  This will open the link in a new window and as well as leave your page open.
7. Save – You can keep this private, only you will see that link when you are logged in.

Step 3 – Click Add Link (on right side)

You can edit any existing links by clicking  Edit under Links menu

You can also add new/update Link categories by clicking Categories under Links menu.

Related Posts

1. How to Create a New Post
2. How to create a Link in a Post
3. How to add a category to a post

From the Dashboard

Step 1 – Under Posts, Click Categories

Step 2 – Type the Category Name you would like

Step 3 – Type the Category Slug that matches your category name, this should be a web friendly version, lower with no spaces.* we recommend a dash to represent a space.

Step 4 – (optional) You could decide to make this a child category, Select the parent category from the dropdown list.

Step 5 – (optional) Add a Description, most themes allow for this, some do not.

Step 6 – Once you have completed your updates, Click Add Category.

You can see a list of the current categories on the right side of the screen.  You can change the name of the category by clicking on the name, making your change and then saving your updates.

Related Posts

1. How to add a category to a post
2. How to Create a New Post
3. How to add New Links

From a Add a New Post

Step 1 – In the Publish Widget on the right side, Click the Publish Edit link

Step 2 – Select  the Month, update the Day, Year and Time as required

Step 3 – Click OK

You will notice that the publish button has now changed to Schedule

Step 4 – Click Schedule

Related Posts

1. How to add a category to a post
2. How to Create a New Post
3. How to add New Links

From a new web browser window

Step 1 – In the browser web address bar, type your domain name and the admin page

example: http://www.yourname.wp-clique.com/wp-admin/

Step 2 – Enter User name and password

Step 3 – Click Log in

You will be taken to the Dashboard.

Related Posts

1. Applying a new Theme
2. How to Create a New Post
3. How to Create New Categories

From a Post

Step 1 – Click the Add New Category link at the bottom a the Category Widget.

Step 2 – Type new Category Name

Step 3 – Click Add

Optional Select the Parent Category, you can use parent/child relationships to further organize your topics.

Related Posts

1. How to Create New Categories
2. How to Create a New Post
3. How to Create a New Page

From a Post or Page

Step 1 - Type the text  you want as a link.

Step 2 – Highlight the text

example:

Step 3 – Click the Link button

Step 4 – A popup box will appear, Enter the web address in the Link URL field.

Step 5 – Change the Target field to open link in new window.

Step 6 – Click Insert

Related Posts

1. How to Create a New Post
2. How to add New Links
3. How to Create New Categories