If you’re new to editing in WordPress, this guide will help you get familiar with the editor options and settings in the editor interface.
In this video, you’ll learn how to get started with the WordPress editor. It covers finding your way around the top menu, content area, and settings sidebar to build and edit your pages and posts.
To access the WordPress editor, visit your site’s dashboard and navigate to Appearance → Editor (available on supported themes). Alternatively, navigate to Pages or Posts and click on the title of any page or post to open the editor.
The editor is made up of three main areas:
- The top menu
- The sidebar settings
- The content area
The admin bar appears across the top of the editor. It gives you quick access to your site and account while you edit:
To hide the admin bar in the editor, open the Options menu (the three dots in the top-right corner), select Appearance, and turn on both the “Distraction free” and “Fullscreen mode” options. The admin bar hides only when both are on. For more ways to adjust the editor, see Personalize the WordPress editor.
At the top of your screen, you will find the following options:
Exit the Editor: Shows the W icon by default, or your Site Icon if you have uploaded this icon. Click to exit the editor.
+ Block Inserter: Add blocks of content to your page, like text, images, and much more.
Tools: Choose between Write mode (hide the layout options from the sidebar to focus solely on writing) and Design mode (adjust colors, sizes, create columns, and more).
Undo and Redo: Undo an action, or redo an undone action.
List View: View a list of all of the blocks that are on the page. Useful for navigating to different blocks.
The List View icon also opens up a second section named Outline, which shows the title, headings, number of characters, and word count on the page.
Zoom Out to edit and create at the pattern level, instead of granular block editing.
Change the viewport to preview your content on desktop, tablet, or mobile screens. Click “Preview in a new tab” or “View site” to see the result of your changes.
Help Center: Search for helpful support guides. Contact us on any paid plans.
Styles: Edit the font, colors, background, and other site-wide style elements. Appears only in the Site Editor view.
Jetpack: Access extra features powered by our Jetpack plugin. Appears only in the page/post editing view.
Settings: Display or hide the sidebar settings.
Save the changes you’ve made. Click once to view the pages and templates affected. Click the “Save” button again to confirm the changes.
Options: Opens additional options.
The content area is the largest part of the editor. This is where you add blocks of content to your page, posts, and templates.
The sidebar settings icon looks like a square with two uneven columns:
When editing a single page or post, the settings sidebar includes the following options:
- Actions
- View
- Duplicate
- Rename
- Move to Trash
- Featured Image
- Status & visibility
- Publish or schedule
- Customize a page’s link
- Author
- Template
- Discussion
- Revisions
- Parent (pages only)
- Order (pages only)
- Access (posts only)
- Excerpt
- Categories (posts only)
- Tags (posts only)
Switch to the Block tab to access the settings for the specific element you’re working on.
When you click on a block in the content area, the sidebar will switch to the Block tab to show that block’s sidebar settings.
The Jetpack sidebar menu includes options to:
- Optimize SEO: Input an SEO title and description for the page/post and preview your content’s search engine appearance. (Eligible plans only)
- Shortlink: Get your page/post shortlink.
- QR code: Generate a QR code for your page or post to open it on different devices. (Appears after publishing a post.)
- Share to social media: Share your post to connected social networks.
- Link preview: Preview how the page/post looks on social media and Google Search. (Plugin-enabled sites only.)
- Insert likes and sharing: Toggle the “like” and sharing buttons for that page or post. For sharing buttons, see the Sharing Buttons block on block themes or Add social share buttons (classic themes) on classic themes.
To access more options, click the three dots to the right of the Settings icon in the upper right corner. Here, you can customize your editing experience using various options.
Appearance
Change how the editor displays your content:
- Top toolbar: Pin block toolbars to the top of the screen instead of directly above the block.
- Distraction free: Hide the settings and menus so only your content shows. See Distraction free mode.
- Spotlight mode: Grey out every block except the one you’re working on.
- Fullscreen mode (pages and posts only): Turn on with Distraction free to hide the admin bar.
Editor
By default, you’ll be in the Visual editor. Switch to the Code editor to view the entire page in HTML code.
Panels
Open the sidebars that plugins add to the editor, including the Jetpack sidebar.
Tools
Here, you can manage existing patterns, learn keyboard shortcuts, revisit the editor welcome guide, copy all content on the page/post, or view additional help resources.
Preferences
In the Preferences menu you can:
- Further customize the editing experience.
- Change how you interact with blocks and which blocks appear when searching for a block.
- Show or hide individual panels from the page/post settings.
