Editing WordPress Pages

Editing the English Department pages WordPress for Faculty Members

 

Training

You should contact Scott Claybrook and schedule training specifically for our WordPress site before delving too deeply into editing pages. This page is not a substitute for proper training. It is possible to really screw things up if you aren’t sure what you are doing.

Having said that, below are steps for doing basic page editing.

Logging in & Editing Pages

  1. Login it with your WFU credentials (username & password). If you are seeing this page, you should be logged in.
  2. You will be taken to the Dashboard.
  3. Clicking on Pages on the left will show you the pages for which you have editing rights. Click on the name of the page to edit it. If you need rights to edit a specific page, contact Scott Claybrook.
  4. Edit text similarly to Sakai or Word. Use the buttons above to format text. Hovering the mouse over the icons will pop up the name of the button.
    1. The top row of button will be your most common formatting elements and tools you will use.
    2. The second row and third will be useful some of the time, especially for more advanced HTML work. Use caution here and make sure you know what you are doing with the html tools.
  5. Remember: Your basic text is the Paragraph format; only have one Heading 1 – the page title; you can have multiple Heading 2 for major sections,  multiple Heading 3 for subsections, etc. This is important for good search engine results.

      • Use color sparingly to bring major emphasis
      • Use bold and italics for regular emphasis
      • Don’t be afraid of the indent and white space between – makes pages easier to read
      • use the number list and unordered list for lists (don’t hand number them)
  6. Don’t use multiple spaces to align text. Use the Increase Indent button on the 2nd row. Pressing the Enter key is a paragraph return, which gives you a double space effect. If you want a line break with a single space effect, hold the Shift key while pressing Enter.
  7. To see what your page actually looks like, you can use the Preview Change button on the right (in the Publish section). It will open the page in a new tab and show you what it will look like when you hit the Publish button. 
  8. Once you are ready to make your changes “live” hit the Update button.
  9. Also DO NOT edit anything outside of the main content block without talking to Scott Claybrook first unless you are sure you know what you are doing. Even if you are sure, it is probably a good idea to talk to Scott first since WP can be a little weird about somethings.

Images

Use the Add Media link above the buttons to insert an image on the page. All uploaded images (or any kind of upload file) end up in the Media Library.

  • Edit your image before posting it to ensure that it is web ready – lower resolution and sized to an appropriate size.
  • If the image is on your computer you will select Upload Files.
  • If the image is already on the site somewhere else, use Media Library.
  • Tagging images is a good thing for organizational purposes.
  • Be sure to give any image you upload Alt Text ( a brief, human readable description of what the image is). This is important for good search engine results and accessibility standards. 
  • Set your options and click [Insert into page] to get the image onto your actual page.

 Updating

Don’t forget to Update your page to make it live or make changes live.

Pages vs Posts

Pages are for permanent content that will remain on the site and usually have a link in the main navigation. Posts are for more temporal things like announcements, news, events, etc. They are not typically be linked in the menu navigation, but they do remain in the site unless they are specifically deleted.

Most of you will be editing only your faculty page. Some of you will be editing other pages as well, depending on your responsibilities. Only a few of you will be creating new Posts or Pages or have the ability to edit the Menu structures. Most of you will have to request that a page be created and it be put in the menu structure if there is a need for a new page.

Even if you have the ability do not create Posts or Pages without authorization from the department chair, an admin, or Scott Claybrook. You will also need to talk to Scott Claybrook before creating new posts so he can explain some necessary conventions for posts.

 

Training Session Handout

The full training handout with step-by-step instructions and images is included below for you to download.

Training Handout

Faculty profile page guidelines

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