A web designer or theme will set the font, spacing and colours of text using style sheets. So that there is continuity across a WordPress site, including headings, sub- headings, paragraphs and text links.

If you have installed your own theme you are often able to change the fonts and colours within theme settings.

When you update a page within WordPress use the text editor, which is much like Microsoft Word. Within the editor text can be resized and made different colours.

Unfortunately this is where most go wrong, as stylising the text within the editor can make the site look messy, and add a lot of unwanted code into the page.

Instead of forcing styles straight from the page, stick to the format that has been created, simply by using headers and paragraphs.

Copying and pasting to WordPress

If you copy and paste directly from Word or from another web page the formatting also copies over.

You will then find the page is not displaying in unison with the rest of the site.

That’s because all the unwanted formatting has copied over as well. How do you fix this?

How to copy text without additional transferring additional formatting

Windows users will find NotePad via the Windows button. Click the Windows button then use CONTROL-F to search for NotePad.

TextEdit is the Mac alternative to NotedPade. Choose to ‘Plain Text’ (Format > Make Plain Text), so that none of the text formatting gets copied over.

NotePad and TextEdit strip the formatting from any text that you paste, producing clean text, that you can copy and paste back into WordPress.

Copy and paste text onto a WordPress page

So the low down to copy and paste text to a WordPress page or post is as follows:

Copy all the text from the original text editor.

Open NotePad or TextEdit.

Paste the text into a new document.

Continuing in NotePad, select all of the text (ctrl A or command A). Copy it (ctrl C or command C).

Go to your WordPress page, put your cursor in the text editor and then paste the text (ctrl P or command P).

The new text will be free of any unwanted text formatting.

Look out for unwanted text formatting on a page

If your page already has formatting on it from the original programmer the page may not sit well, and have gaps or overlaps.

Look at the code of the page to see if there are random html tags.

To the right of the toolbar are the tabs Visual and Text.

Clicking text enables you to see the html within the content of that page.

Be careful when you are taking out html tags, as they may have a purpose.

If you are certain you do not want any of the tags a way to wipe the page clean is to select all, then over write everything when you are in Text view.

Using ‘Private Drafts’ in WordPress

The cleanest way to write a post/page is to write it in WordPress itself. This avoids bringing unwanted formatting over on the copy and paste.

Private drafts enable you to write and review your page, without releasing it onto a live site.

The ‘Private Draft’ button is in the Publish box on the right hand side of a new post.

On a post that has already published you won’t see the Private Draft button, but you can still make the post private.

In the Publish box, click Edit on the line labelled Status. Drop the menu down and select Draft, then OK.

The Publish box also allows you to schedule posts for the future, or change the date on a post. Useful if you are bringing something up to date.

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