Awesome WordPress Features You Probably Didn’t Know About

WordPress comes with so many features and is always growing, so it's hard to promote all the great little bits it contains. Some of these features don't necessarily get all the attention they deserve, so remain hard to find. In this article, I hope to show you a few things you might not know about WordPress which will hopefully make running your site an easier experience.

1. Accessibility mode for Widgets

WordPress comes with a hidden accessibility mode for widgets. This accessibility mode makes it easier to add widgets without dragging and dropping the items.

Accessibility mode for WordPress widgets can be activated by clicking on Screen Options button on the Appearance » Widgets page.

2. Preview themes without activating them

When it comes to changing the theme of your site, many users worry that changing it will have unintended consequences. This is a legitimate worry but thankfully there's a way to view what your site will look like once activated with a new theme.

To test the new theme without activating it simply install your new WordPress theme and then go to Appearance » Themes page. Take the mouse to the newly installed theme’s thumbnail and then click on the Live Preview button.

3. Edit images within WordPress itself

WordPress makes it very easy to enter different media types within your posts, be they images or videos. What a lot of people don't know however is that WordPress allows you to edit the images within WordPress itself. If offers basic editing tools such as cropping and re-sizing and also allows you to flip an image vertically or horizontally.

Simply visit Media » Library page and then click on any image. From the image details popup, you can click on the Edit Image button.

4. Use Markdown and Keyboard shortcuts to help you write faster

Since WordPress 4.3, you can use Markdown-like syntax to make your writing a lot faster. Stars and dashes make lists, hashes make titles and so on. Take a further look at the announcement for this feature for more details on how to use shortcuts.

5. Sticky/Pinned posts

This is one of the few features on the WordPress visual editor screen. The idea lies behind the fact that several users might want to have a post pinned at the top of their homepage, for first-time visitors maybe? Or simply because they believe that the post would become a great one hence deserving a better place to be displayed, they wish to pin it at the top! So, how do we make it happen then? Showing at the right of the visual editor in the Publish panel, click “Edit” next to “Visibility”. After that, all that is left to do is to check the “Stick this post to the front page” option, and save!

6. Auto-embed links, video and media

Introduced since WordPress version 4.4, this cool feature has proven to be really useful and time-saving. You just paste a link into the post editor and WordPress then generates a Post Embed. In case of a long post, this feature would be clickable box present in the body of the content. This box includes the site name, featured image (if any) and a short excerpt of the page’s content. Since WordPress 4.4, all WordPress sites have become oEmbed service providers themselves. This means you can paste URL from another WordPress site into your post and WordPress will embed the post for you.

7. Regenerate a posts name by deleting it

If you rename a post before it is published, you’ll generally want to edit the link to make sure the post name is the same as the URL. All you need to do is to find the permalink under the post title, click edit and just delete the former thing in the box. After you click OK, the post name will be regenerated in line with the current title of the post.

8. Quick edit posts

If you want to stay productive and be able to quickly edit posts on your site, you will find the Quick Edit Posts feature very helpful. It has options that allow you to edit the title, change the date and author, add or change the category of the post, add more tags and make the post sticky or even password protect it.

To quick edit posts on your site, navigate to Posts > All Posts.

Hover your mouse over the post that you want to edit. You will see some options including Quick Edit.

9. Import Data

Are you moving your blog from another platform to self-hosted WordPress, or from one WordPress site to another? Moving data from one site to another is pretty complicated and time-consuming task. Thankfully, due to the Import Data feature of WordPress, you can easily and quickly import your content to your WordPress site.

Navigate to Tools > Import. You will see a list of import options to choose from. Just select the one that fits you best.

10. Schedule a post for the future

Sometimes you might not want to publish a post right away. Instead, you may want to get the post finished today and publish on another day.Can you do this without a plugin? Absolutely! WordPress supports post scheduling.

On the right-hand side of the Post Editor, you can find the Publish Box. Click on Edit, next to the Publish button.

This opens up a date entry option. Enter date and time to schedule the post, and click OK.

After this, your post is now scheduled for your specified time and date.