The visual editor provides a semi-WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) content editor that allows you to easily create, edit, and format your blog content in a view similar to that of a word processor.
This is the default editing mode for WordPress, but if it does not appear to be enabled, you can select the Visual tab in the top right corner of the editor area, as depicted below.
There are two (2) rows of editing icons contained within the visual editor. You can find out what any icon means or does by hovering over it with your mouse – a small tooltip will appear describing the icon and its purpose.
Row-1
When initially opened, the visual editor will display a single row of icons:
- Bold
- Italic
- Strike-through
- Unordered list (bullet points):
- Item 1
- Item 2
- Ordered list
- Item 1
- Item 2
- Blockquote (a way of displaying quoted text; each theme will style this differently.)
- Align Left
- Align Center
- Align Right
- Insert/edit link
- Unlink
- Insert More tag
- Proofread/Spell Check
- Toggle Distraction Free Writing
- Show/Hide Kitchen sink (enables the second row of editing icons)
Row 2
To display the second row of icons, select the kitchen sink icon
- Style – various formatting styles defined by your theme
- Underline
- Align full
- Select text color – change the text color
- Paste as Plain Text
- Paste from Word
- Remove formatting
- Insert custom character
- Outdent – move text further left
- Indent – move text further right
- Undo – undo your last action
- Redo – redo your last action
- Help – display some information about using the editor, as well as keyboard shortcuts.
Alignment
Both text and images can be aligned using the appropriate icons:
Left
Right
Center
Full
Note that full alignment can only be applied to text and will align both sides of the text.
Styles
The style drop-down menu allows you to change the formatting of any selected text. This includes various headings and other pre-defined styles built into your theme.
Note that your WordPress Theme may come with additional styles that you can apply to your text.
Text Color
To change text color you must first highlight a section of text:
Selecting a color will apply that color to the selected text and make it the default color for the color button.
Clicking on the text color button itself will apply the last default color.
Pasting Text
This button is a toggle button, click the small icon with at T, it will open a window, past text (control V) into box.
The indent button will move text in by one level, and the outdent button will take away one level.
Spacing
Hitting the Enter (Return) key will end the paragraph you are writing and start a new one. If you want to start a new line without creating a new paragraph, press the Shift key while hitting Enter.