5 Top Editing Tips for WordPress

Working with WordPress can be challenging enough for new bloggers without simple editing mistakes ruining their day. When I tutor bloggers on the fundamentals of WordPress, I’m always struck by how many of them don’t understand some basic typical keyboard strokes that have become constant across all graphics and web software.

So now, getting back to basics, here are the top 5 tips for editing in WordPress.

Soft Return/Hard Return

Ending a paragraph in WordPress is more than just hitting the Enter/Return key. It’s important to know the difference between a Soft Return and Hard Return when you end a paragraph.

A Hard Return by hitting the Enter/Return key is going to give you an double line space in WordPress. This is fine when you want to add a new paragraph to your text or to give space to a header. Hard Returns are especially useful when you want to format your text, as it limits the coding to just that line.

Hard Return

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A Soft Return by pressing Shift + Enter/Return gives a single space. Soft Returns are especially useful for creating lists. However, with Soft Returns your text formatting will carry forward.

Soft Return
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Select Carefully

Because WordPress is creating code behind your text, it is very important to select your text carefully when formatting your paragraphs. One overreaching selection can add code to lines and characters where you don’t want it.

If you want to set a header tag at Heading 4, select only the words. Resist the urge to select the entire line as that will carry the code down to the next line.

Hard Return

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Soft Return
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Using a Hard Return helps to prevent unwanted code from spreading. When in doubt about what why your text is formatted wrongly, switch to the HTML viewer and look for unwanted code around the text.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The computer gods have given us keyboard shortcuts, so by all means use them.

For Mac, the simple Cmd C for copy, Cmd X for cut, Cmd V for paste and the crucial Cmd Z for undo are the most essential shortcuts you can perform. You will save hundreds of hours over a career by using keystrokes instead of your mouse or keypad.

For a quick guide on Keyboard Shortcuts press the ? button on the toolbar, then click on Hotkeys in the Rich Text Editor.

READ MORE: Best Blog Post Topics to Cure Your Writers Block

Find/Change Paragraph Marks

If you write in a word program and typically separate your paragraphs by hitting the  Enter/Return twice, you’re giving extra space between the paragraphs. This formatting will be exacerbated in WordPress by adding way even more space between your paragraphs. The only way to fix it in WordPress is by clicking and deleting every extra line of space between paragraphs, which is tedious and time consuming.

A better solution is performed in Word before you copy your clean, unformatted text to the Edit Post box. Use Word’s Find/Change tool and in Advanced mode pull down the Insert  drop list to: ¶ Paragraph Mark, and set Find to:  ¶ ¶ and Change to: ¶.

Hit the Replace All button and watch your text close up tight. Then, copy and paste that text into WordPress. Depending on the length, you will have saved minutes of tedious line deleting.

Line Up Photos

Let’s say you want to place a few small photos or thumbnails in a straight line on the page and you don’t feel like creating a Gallery for them. To make the photos line up perfectly, import the first one from the Media Library and once it’s there, do not click anywhere else on the page. Click on the camera icon again, import the next photo and it should line up perfectly.

It’s best to import photos in the order you want them to appear. The import thing is to not click anywhere but the camera icon after each photo is imported.