Have you ever had Visual Editor disappear in your WordPress (WP) blog? When you’re editing or adding posts or pages if Visual Editor is available you will see two tabs above the box where you type your posts. One is Visual and the other is HTML.
WordPress Visual Editor
Many WP bloggers probably do not realize there is a setting to make the Visual tab disappear. This can happen when updating WordPress or when collaborating in a WordPress blog with someone who prefers to write html manually.
To turn the Visual Editor back on go to Users (in the left column when you are logged into your blog), click on Your Profile, look for Personal Options and uncheck the box that says Disable the visual editor when writing.
Visual Editor is what provides the options for formatting your posts automatically without knowing how to write html from scratch. The default only shows the first row of options in the Visual Editor.
To reveal or hide the second row click the last icon in the first row. The icon has three lines of dots on it and says Show/Hide Kitchen Sink (Alt+Shift+Z) when you point at it.
The second row contains a drop-down for adding header tags and additional options for formatting text including changing text colors, pasting tools, a remove formatting button, tools for adding media, custom characters, indent, outdent, undo, redo and help.
After you show the Kitchen Sink by clicking on the icon or using the keyboard shortcut Alt + Shift + Z you will see the second row (pictured in the image below):
WordPress Visual Editor Kitchen Sink Options
Those who use word processing programs such as Microsoft Word or the free open source alternative Open Source Word Process I prefer from OpenSource.org will be familiar with most of those options.
Something very useful that you may not be aware of are the buttons for pasting as plain text, paste from Word, and remove formatting.
How to correctly paste from Word or other formatted text into WordPress
If you have ever tried to paste anything from Word directly into WordPress you already know that it can be a mess. It can take longer to clean up the formatting than it would take to write it completely over from scratch!
These little known tools clean up the formatting and allow you to paste content into your WordPress blog. If one option doesn’t work just the way you like try the other one. Most of the time one of these will be just what you needed to turn your Word documents into blog posts.
If the text is not what you want use the remove formatting button to remove the exiting formatting and preserve the content. Then format in WordPress as usual.
My readers may have noticed that I put some information in colorful boxed that stand out in my posts. Have you ever read a long post and said, “yes, that is what I need to do” and then spent far too long skimming the article trying to find the “how-to” among the explanation?
I put the “how-to” parts, specific instructions, or mark a section of a post for reference using these boxes. I do this to make it easy for someone to quickly find the part of each post they need to implement what I am writing about. If you look at what I put in the boxes in this post to see what I mean.
I bring that up in this post because it is a function of the visual editor that allows me to do this quickly and easily. I highlight the selected text and click on the double quote Blockquote icon (Alt+Shift+Q).
The default in the Thesis Theme I used was a gray text. I asked my WordPress Ninja Derek Semmler to edit the CSS for my blogs to make my BlockQuotes more prominent. He edited the text and box color to match the theme of each site.
You can see the Thesis default in our Personalized Gifts blog and compare that to how prominent and beautiful these matching quote boxes are in our Golf Blog and in the Good Millwork blog like this one about mahogany moldings.
For those who know how, unique boxes can be created using CSS styling. If you don’t you can get someone who does to add the code and then you paste it into the html of your posts. That is how the different colored boxes in Good Millwork’s Crown Moldings post were done.
USING WORDPRESS VISUAL EDITOR
- Business Blogging (Ed Bejarana) How to Use the WordPress Visual Editor
- How to Blog at Blogging Teacher (Twitter) Writing Blog Posts Using the Visual Editor
- TysTips WordPress Tips Using the WordPress Visual Editor – Excellent source for newbie bloggers; covers how to write your very first blog post
- Official WordPress Support How to Use Visual Editor
- Blog Wranglers Professional Blog Migration Services How to Change WordPress Font Colors in Visual Editor
HOW TO INSTALL WORDPRESS
- Flame Scorpion (Twitter) How to Quick Install WordPress and Start Your Blog Right Away
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Welcome Gaye,
I’m glad you liked it. I hope you saw the Best of GrowMap page (linked from the bottom of each post) or scanned the categories in the right column to see what else you might find useful.
growmap´s last blog ..Keyword Tags, MetaTags, Tags: How Many Are Best?
During my initial days of blogging, I was clueless about this entire thing. It took me a lot of time in the bargain. Gradually, I came to know about the visual user setting of Word Press. This is a good post. Awaiting more such useful information!
Hello Nancy,
Most people don’t realize that it can be turned off and on until it disappears either because of a conflict with a plugin or because someone else who has access to their blog turns it off and forgets to turn it back on or doesn’t realize they won’t know how.
That has happened to me a few times over the years so I decided to write this post so I will always know where to look and to assist others who run into the same issue.
growmap´s last blog ..Why Marketing is NOT Evil
You’re welcome Evelina,
One thing that could really help you is to make friends with WordPress bloggers who leave chat open while they’re working. That way you can get quick answers as you need them. It is much faster to learn when you have direct connection to someone with experience.
If you want some great tips on taking your blog to the next level check out my Blogging Success post.
growmap´s last blog ..Who Can You Benefit by Sharing GrowMap?
LOL. We can always count on Dennis to make the comments here more interesting. Lisa, you might send the link to the “how-to-use-Visual-editor” tutorials to your clients and make sure to point out the Paste from Word, Paste as Plain Text and Remove Formatting tools mentioned in this post.
Have you tried using Remove Formatting to clean up those code issues? I’d be interested in knowing how well it works and have no reason to test it myself.
growmap´s last blog ..Free Business Listings in Local Search Directories
Hello Chris,
No wysiwyg editor is perfect and they all have to be tweaked at times. Perhaps with lots of experience one could learn to proofread and rewrite in html but it gives me a headache. It would help if links went AFTER the anchor text in html instead of before.
I probably should write some posts on how to tweak common issues introduced by visual editor. I am always swamped so if anyone needs to know just send me an email through the contact form.
growmap´s last blog ..Keyword Tags, MetaTags, Tags: How Many Are Best?
Apparently there are a lot of code jockeys who prefer to write in html and disable WordPress Visual Editor.
I suspect they don’t read, rewrite and edit what they write as doing that in html view is no fun at all. To each their own.
growmap´s last blog ..My Review of The New Community Rules
Hi Dennis,
If you use Open Office you are using Open Source. There are different views on exactly what Open Source is especially since where it started is certainly not where it is currently going.
My definition means independent of multi-national corporate control. If we allow them to take over and control open source projects what really is the point?
growmap´s last blog ..Why Marketing is NOT Evil
Great post! I didn’t know that visual could be turned off, not that I’d do that, but it’s good to know how to turn it back on (just in case). I haven’t tried the paste from word feature, but have had little problems with my postings. Really like the box idea.
NancyCollins@OnlineInternetMarketingTraining´s last blog ..Online Marketing Business Opportunity – How Far Can Faith Take You?
Thank you Lisa, it warms my heart to know when someone reads my comments. LOL
You misinterpreted though. I said, “when they don’t have to” you clearly stated sometimes you have to…..hence, not a nut-job.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Will DEDC Comments Remain Do-Follow? It’s Up To YOU!