This post covers the parts of writing a new post that are common to all content types. For information on specific content types, see:
News Item | Special Report | LinksDossier | Interview | Opinion | Infographic | Video
This page does not cover how to publish posts. For more information see:
Publishing a Post | Display Options | Publishing Pipeline | Taxonomies | Translations
Creating / Editing a Post
To create a new post, use the “New” menu item in the upper bar when you are logged in (fig 1). When you mouse over the item, you will see a drop menu with post types. Select the post type you wish to use.
If you select the wrong post type, you do not have to delete the article and start over; you can use the “Change Content Type” metabox in the lower left hand corner of the edit screen (fig 2).
To edit a post, you can either search for the post in the appropriate content type screen (fig 3), or navigate to the post in the front-end and click the “Edit” button that will appear in the top bar (fig 4).
The Text Editor
EurActiv uses the TinyMCE text editor that comes by default with WordPress. The online documentation is very complete and we suggest that you look there first. Nevertheless, we receive a couple of frequently asked questions that we will attempt to answer here.
- I can’t see the buttons, or I see lots of code in my text: Be sure that your text editor is in visual mode, but clicking the tab marked “Visual” (fig 5, #1)
- I can’t see the extra functions (erase formatting, insert special character…): At the end of the second row is a button to show or hide the second row (fig 5, #2)
- I’ve pasted from Word or another website and now I have lots of bad formatting: Highlight the text in question (use CTRL+A to highlight everything) and click the eraser button (fig 5, #3).
Featured Image
Each post must have a featured image. To add a featured image, use the featured image metabox on the right. Important note: for best results, the featured image should be 800px wide and 450px tall.
Post Excerpt
The post Excerpt is a short description of the post that will appear on index pages listing the article and the post RSS feed. By default, WordPress will use the first 55 words of the article as the post excerpt if this field is left empty.
Additional Post Fields
Each content type has at least one additional field type, such as “Background” or “Positions”. The input boxes for these fields are below the text input area for the post excerpt. In the frontend, they display immediately after the article body text. You do not have to input a title for the additional fields; it is automatically generated.
Anti-SEO
Anti-SEO is necessary to honor the SEO requirements of some content providers. They will prevent the page from being indexed in search engines. Avoid using them unless absolutely necessary. The checkbox “Add a NOINDEX tag” will add a No Index meta tag to the post. The Canonical URL box will add a canonical meta tag.
