It is very common that someone will want to include a link to a PDF document in the text of a post. The process wasn’t very logical in earlier versions, but with the Block Editor it has become simple. This video shows you both ways. I hope you enjoy. Leave a comment below if you have any questions.
Tutorials
How to create a new WordPress page
Adding images to Supsystic Galleries in WordPress
The Supsystic image gallery is a very useful plugin for WordPress. The free version is packed with features and the pro version gives a huge amount of customizations. Once it is installed into your WordPress site, you will want to create a new gallery and upload images. The video below shows you step by step how to add new images to your gallery.
Adding Images Cheat sheet
- In your menu go to the “Galleries by Supsystic” section and click on “Galleries
- Click on the ‘Add Images’ button in the gallery that you are adding to
- Click on “Import form WordPress Media Library”, click on upload files and choose your images for your gallery
- Add your caption and alt text and click on the Choose image button on the bottom right
- When the list of images comes up, you can edit the caption and change the caption effect. You can also create a link from the image and change the order. You change the order by simply drag and drop
That’s it. If you have any questions, please post them in the comment section below.
Editing bulk products in OpenCart with ExcelPort
This is a tutorial on editing a group of products in OpenCart using the ExcelPort extension. I will be updating products in OpenCart v2.1.0.2 and using ExcelPort v2.2.2.
Below is a video that goes into depth on how to enter multiple products. I will create a new post that explains this in more detail.
If you have found this tutorial useful or you have any questions, please post your comments below.
How to optimize images for your WordPress blog
Page speed can be heavily effected by the size of images that you use in your WordPress blog. In this tutorial I will:
- Show you how to edit a large image to a smaller size using both the GIMP editing software and using image editor in WordPress.
Image editors
There are a lot of image editing programs out there and I know that everyone has their favorite. Changing the size of an image is an easy task and can be done by even the simplest image program including some very good online sites. Please see the end of this article for a list of resources.
As a Linux desktop user, I am very fond of using “The GIMP” for all kinds of image manipulation, and for batch image resizing I often will use Gwenview or Phatch. There are versions of GIMP for Windows and Mac and installing is simple. Phatch is also available for windows and Mac, but there are many resources. Check here for a list or just use Google.
Re-size using GIMP
Load the image into GIMP by going to ‘File’ in the top menu and clicking ‘open’. Navigate to the image you want to open. As you can see in this example, the image I am loading is 4500 x 3000 px making it over 1.8 MB in download size. Not only will this take a long time to upload into your media file, if you use the full size it will be too big for your page.
The first thing you will need to do is decide what a good full size should be. I would go no larger than 900 px wide but usually 600 px will work. In this case I will use 600px.
Scale the image
In the top menu, go to Image and click on ‘Scale Image’. In the new window that opens you can adjust the image size and the resolution. Make sure that the chain link is connected so that the image scales proportionally and then type 600 in the width field. The height should change accordingly. An image displayed on a screen does not need more resolution than 72 pixels per inch. Make sure both x and y resolution fields are changed then click ‘Scale’.
Remember to save the file with a unique file name.
Loading to your WordPress Blog
By clicking the ‘Add Media’ button while you are writing a blog post, you will bring up a window called ‘Insert Media’. Click on ‘Upload Files’ and browse to the newly re-sized image. Here be sure to give the image a good title and alt text to help the search engines categorize it. Depending on your theme, giving it caption text may create a border around the image and the caption. You can choose to align the image to the right or left, choose where it links to and finally what size to display the image.
When you load an image using the media center, WordPress actually creates two extra files for each image that you load. a thumbnail and a medium sized image. These sizes are set in the media tab in your left side bar. Changing the settings here will not effect images that are already loaded, just new images. This is a nice feature in that if you choose medium, your blog images will all be similar in size. Thumbnails will be used for featured images and category pages.
Now when you click ‘Insert to post’ the image will be an optimized size. If you have chosen to have the image link to the media file or attachment page, it will link to the full size image that you created.
Editing within WordPress
WordPress does have an image editor within the Media Center and it can be useful in a pinch. One word of caution though. Using this editor in WordPress versions prior to 3.9 will not alter the thumbnail or the medium size images, only the main image. If you load a picture that is on its side and use the image editor to rotate it, the thumbnail will still be sideways. Version 3.9 has solved this and this instruction assumes that you are using WordPress 3.9.
Click on the image in your blog post visual window that you want to edit. Click on the pencil icon to edit the image. Now click on ‘Edit Original’ to get to the screen to the right. From here you can change the size as well as crop and rotate.
Try the Google photo editor:
Did I miss anything?
Thank you for reading this short tutorial. Is there anything I left out? What is your favorite image editor? Please comment below with your thoughts. I will respond to your questions.
How to turn off comments in pages and posts
In order to turn off comments: Â Log in, go to that page and click edit (or find the page in the dashboard), find the box called “discussion” and un-check both check boxes. Â If you can’t find that box, look up at the top and click on “Screen Options” and make sure everything is checked. Â See below:
Also, under Settings>Discussion you can have the comments for posts turn off after a certain number of days, which can come in handy if you forget to go back and turn them off after the initial surge of visitors has ended.
I hope these WordPress tips has helped you. Please let me know what you think in the comment section below.
How to export a CVS file from phpMyAdmin
Overview
Sometimes it is very handy to be able to export a CSV (Comma Separated Value) from your database. Perhaps you want to use your spread sheet program to quickly alter some of the fields or you want to quickly add new rows (e.g. products) without having to go through your administration interface. Here is an easy set of instructions to help you on your way. [Read more…] about How to export a CVS file from phpMyAdmin
How to edit a page in WordPress using the classic editor
The question comes up from website owners often enough that I have decided to create an instruction page on how to edit one of your WordPress (WP) pages.
Structural Overview
First things first, let me give you a birds eye view of the difference between pages and posts. In WP a “Page” is a part of your website that stays fairly static. You may change the pictures or text occasionally but as opposed to “Posts” they are the structure of your website. For example, your “About Us” page or your “Contact Us” page. On the other hand, “Posts” are what would be considered your blog. Sometimes posts are used for something other than a blog, for example, product listings, but you can think of it as a type of page that you will create often. Posts can be organized with categories and tags and can be displayed either on a category archive page or on a page of posts. These are typically shown with the newest at the top.
[Read more…] about How to edit a page in WordPress using the classic editor