The Busy Bee

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

How to Update your WordPress Installation.

When a new update to WordPress is released, you will be notified in your admin panel by a one sentence statement to that effect, displayed at the top of each page of your WordPress admin panel. There is a link in that notification to update. Updating your installation immediately is always a good idea.  Sometimes the updates have security patches that protect your website from hackers.

Click that link to go to the update page where you will have 2 options – to update automatically or manually.

The WordPress automatic updater works very well. Just click the button to update and wait 5 to 10 seconds until it tells you it is complete.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

It is actually super easy to create a new post or page in WordPress.

1. Login to your WordPress Admin panel;
2. On the left column where the core navigation buttons are, click on either the Posts or Pages button, depending on which you want to create;
3. Click on the “Add New” link.  This will take you to the “Add New Post” or “Add New Page” screen.
4. Enter your title in the top text area.
5. Enter your post or page content.  Edit your content.
6. Save or Publish your new post or page.
7. The rest is optional.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

This section of the guide starts on the Edit Post or Edit Page section of your WordPress Admin area.  You can get there either by choosing the “Edit” or “Add New” option under Posts or Pages on you Core Navigation bar at the left of your admin screen (see image to right for reference). If you are adding a new post or page, you may want read How to Add a New Post or Page before continuing below.  If you are editing an existing post or page, you will be presented with a list of posts or pages to choose from.  You can either click on the title of the post or page, or hover your cursor over the bottom of the title and options will appear, including “edit”.

Let’s get started.

The control panel to edit a post is identical to that used to edit a page, therefor the information below pertains to both.

Upload/Insert Media

The icons at the top left of the editor next to the words Upload/Insert allow you to add and edit images, video, audio and other media.  We will be focusing on editing text in this article.  You can learn about uploading and inserting media in the article titled How to Add Images and other Media in WordPress.

Visual and HTML Editors

There are two content editor modes, the “Visual” editor and the “HTML” editor.  You can select which editor you want to use using the buttons at top right of the content editor.  The image below shows the Visual editor.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

Let’s Get Started

Orientation » There are two editing modes, Visual and HTML.  Each have their own edit commands.  We will be working within the “Visual” editing mode.  See below at top right of the editing area where the word “Visual” is clear and “HTML” is faded out.  This means you are in visual mode.  If you are not, simply click on the work “Visual” to switch modes.

WordPress is a powerful program that is simple to use.  It is that way because many people have put years into refining it to be so.  Millions of people use it, and there are endless resources to help you learn more and do more with it. It was designed as a blogging platform and has grown to serve as a multi-faceted content management system for seemingly endless possibilities.

This is a simple WordPress user’s guide for beginners, designed to guide a new user through the basics of adding and editing content in a pre-installed WordPress environment.  Whether you are using this as a blogging platform or as a content management system, this guide should serve the beginner well.  This user guide is written at a time when the current version of WordPress is version 2.9.

Side Note: Whether you are a web designer or developer using this guide to support your clients, or a first time user of WordPress, feel free to let me know how I can improve this guide – by submitting comments below.  It is not intended to be exhaustive, just the basics.  And please be patient and check back for updates.

Lets get started.

What you need

• The URL address (website address) to login to your admin panel.  (It will likely end in: /wp-admin or /wp-login.php).
• Your username and password.

Guide Topics – many coming soon

• Overview – Dashboard and Core Navigation
• Posts & Pages Overview
• Create a New Post or Page
• Add, Edit, and Format Text in a Post and Page
• Add Images, Video, Audio and other Media
• Edit Images, Video, Audio and other Media
• How to Update and Backup your WordPress Website