One of my favorite plugins for WordPress is TinyMCE, which is a customization plugin for your post and page editor toolbar. In this post I am going to show you the basics of how to use TinyMCE.

The video you see above can also be found in our WordPress 101 course.

WordPress, by default, gives you some WYSIWYG toolbar options very similar to those you would find in any Word style application.

Also a recent addition to the default WordPress is a very basic version of TinyMCE. So depending on your version of WordPress, you will need to install TinyMCE or TinyMCE Advanced.

For this tutorial, we will be installing TinyMCE Advanced.

Getting Started with TinyMCE

The first thing you need to do if you have not done so already is download and install TinyMCE. If you are using WordPress 2.9 or higher, you will need to install the Advanced version, anything older you should install TinyMCE.

How To Use TinyMCE

Notice in the image above there are 4 rows being shown. The 2nd row is a row called ‘the kitchen sink’. By default, the WordPress editor does not show this row. You will also notice a button, which if clicked, ‘shows the kitchen sink’. So, if you add new options to the second row, and you do not see them when you go to edit a post or page, just click Show Kitchen Sink and they should show up.

I personally do not like to do that, so I remove everything from row 2, only using rows 1, 3, and 4 if necessary.

How To Use TinyMCE

This next image shows you a quick look at some of the new toolbar options that you can Drag and Drop into the empty rows. There are a few that I recommend to everyone, but many of these are very specific and most of you will not need to use them.

These are the three things I recommend for anyone using TinyMCE

1. Paragraph – Allows you to change your font style tags(ie. H1, H2, etc)
2. Font Size – Allows you to change the font size
3. Tables – Allows you to add tables to your page/post without having to manually write the code

Once you have organized your toolbars the way that you would like them, just click Save Settings at the bottom of the screen and you are done.

Now go to an edit screen for either a post or a page, and you should see all of your new toolbar options and rows ready to use!

I hope this article has helped you understand how to use TinyMCE to increase the power of your WordPress editor.

If you have any questions or comments please let us know!

Tagged as: How to use TinyMCE, tinymce, TinyMCE Advanced