WordPress is an open source Content Management System (CMS), which allows the users to

build dynamic websites and blog. WordPress is the most popular blogging system on the web
and allows updating, customizing and managing the website from its back-end CMS and
components. This tutorial will teach you the basics of WordPress using which you can create
websites with ease.

WordPress is an open source Content Management System (CMS), which allows the users to
build dynamic websites and blogs. WordPress is the most popular blogging system on the web
and allows updating, customizing and managing the website from its back-end CMS and
components.

What is Content Management System (CMS)?

The Content Management System (CMS) is a software which stores all the data such as text,
photos, music, documents, etc. and is made available on your website. It helps in editing,
publishing and modifying the content of the website.
WordPress was initially released on 27th May, 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
WordPress was announced as open source in October 2009.

Features

 User Management − It allows managing the user information such as changing the role of
the users to (subscriber, contributor, author, editor or administrator), create or delete the
user, change the password and user information. The main role of the user manager
is Authentication.
 Media Management − It is the tool for managing the media files and folder, in which you
can easily upload, organize and manage the media files on your website.
 Theme System − It allows modifying the site view and functionality. It includes images,
stylesheet, template files and custom pages.
 Extend with Plugins − Several plugins are available which provides custom functions and
features according to the users need.
 Search Engine Optimization − It provides several search engine optimization (SEO)
tools which makes on-site SEO simple.
 Multilingual − It allows translating the entire content into the language preferred by the
user.
 Importers − It allows importing data in the form of posts. It imports custom files,
comments, post pages and tags.

Advantages

 It is an open source platform and available for free.

 CSS files can be modified according to the design as per users need.
 There are many plugins and templates available for free. Users can customize the various
plugins as per their need.
  It is very easy to edit the content as it uses WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What
You Get is a user interface that allows the user to directly manipulate the layout of
document without having a layout command).
 Media files can be uploaded easily and quickly.
 It offers several SEO tools which makes on-site SEO simple.
 Customization is easy according to the user's needs.
 It allows creating different roles for users for website such as admin, author, editor and
contributor.

Disadvantages

 Using several plugins can make the website heavy to load and run.
 PHP knowledge is required to make modifications or changes in the WordPress website.
 Sometimes software needs to be updated to keep the WordPress up-to-date with the
current browsers and mobile devices. Updating WordPress version leads to loss of data, so
a backup copy of the website is required.
 Modifying and formatting the graphic images and tables is difficult.

Wordpress Installations

System Requirements for WordPress

 Database − MySQL 5.0 +

 Web Server −
o WAMP (Windows)
o LAMP (Linux)
o XAMP (Multi-platform)
o MAMP (Macintosh)
 Operating System − Cross-platform
 Browser Support − IE (Internet Explorer 8+), Firefox, Google chrome, Safari, Opera
 PHP Compatibility − PHP 5.2+

Download WordPress

When you open the link https://wordpress.org/download/, you will get to see a screen as the
following snapshot −
Create Store Database

 WordPress requires MySQL database. So create a new empty database with user/password
(for example, user as "root" and password as "root" or else you can set as per your
convenience).
 Then, you can continue with the installation process as discussed further.

Set Up Wizard

It's very easy to set up WordPress into your system. The following steps describe how to set up
WordPress locally on your system.
Step (1) − Extract the downloaded WordPress folder and upload it into your web server or
localhost.
Step (2) − Open your browser and navigate to your WordPress file path, then you will get the
first screen of the WordPress installer as shown in the following screen. In our case, the path
is localhost/< Your_wordpress_folder >.
Select your language for the WordPress and click on Continue.
Step (3) − In this step, you can view the information needed for the database before proceeding
with WordPress installation.
Click on Let's go!
Step (4) − Here, you have to enter the information about the MySQL database as described in the
following screen.
  Database Name − Enter the database name which you have created in MySQL database
for WordPress.
 Username − Enter the user name of your MySQL database.
 Password − Enter the password which you had set for MySQL database.
 Database Host − Write the host name, by default it will be localhost.
 Table Prefix − It is used to add prefix in the database tables which helps to run multiple
sites on the same database. It takes the default value.
After filling all information, click on Submit button.
Step (5) − WordPress checks the database setting and gives you the confirmation screen as
shown in the following snapshot.

Click on Run the install

Step (6) − Enter administrative information.

It contains the following fields −

 Site Title − Enter the name of the site which you are going to create in WordPress.
 Username − Enter the username as per your choice while logging in the WordPress.
 Password twice − Enter password two times to protect your site.
 Your E-mail − Enter your e-mail address which helps to recover the password or any
update.
 Privacy − It allows the search engine to index this site after checking the checkbox.
After filling all the information, click on the Install WordPress button.
Step (7) − After installation being successful, you will get a screen of the stating success as seen
in the following screen.
You can view your username and password detail added in WordPress.
Click on Log In button.
Step (8) − After clicking on login, you will get a WordPress Admin Panel as depicted in the
following screen.
Enter the username and password which you had mentioned during installation as shown in step
6 and click on the Log In button.

General Settings
In this chapter, we will study about General Settings in WordPress. WordPress general setting is
used to set the basic configuration settings for your site. In the setting administration screen, it is
a default setting screen.
Following are the steps to access the general settings −
Step 1 − Click on Settings → General option in WordPress.

Step 2 − The General Setting page is displayed as shown in the following snapshot.
Following are the details of the fields on general settings page.
 Site Title − It displays the name of the site in the template header.
 Tagline − Displays a short sentence about your site.
 WordPress Address (URL) − It is the URL of WordPress directory where your all core
application files are present.
 Site Address(URL) − Enter the site URL which you want your site to display on the
browser.
 E-mail Address − Enter your e-mail address which helps to recover your password or any
update.
  Membership − Anyone can register an account on your site after you check this
checkbox.
 New User Default Role − The default role is set for the newly registered user or
members.
 Timezone − Sets the time zone based on the particular city.
 Date Format − Sets the date format as you need to display on the site.
 Time Format − Sets the time format as you need to display on the site.
 Week Starts On − Select the week day which you prefer to start for WordPress calendar.
By default it is set as Monday.
 Site Language − Sets the language for the WordPress dashboard.
Step3 − After filling all the information about general settings, click on Save Changes button. It
saves all your general setting information.
Writing Setting

The writing settings controls the writing experience and provides options for customizing
WordPress site. These settings control the features in the adding and editing posts, Pages, and
Post Types, as well as the optional functions like Remote Publishing, Post via e-mail, and Update
Services.
Following are the steps to access the writing settings −
Step (1) − To change writing settings, go to Settings → Writing option.
Step (2) − The Writing Setting page is displayed as shown in the following screen.
Following are the details of the fields on the page.
 Formatting − This field defines two sub options for better user experience.
o The first option Convert emoticons like :-) and :-P to graphics on display will turn
text-based emoticons into graphic-based emoticons.
o The second option WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML
automatically corrects the invalid XHTML placed within the posts or pages.
 Default Post Category − It is a category to be applied to a post and you can leave it
as Uncategorized.
 Default Post Format − It is used by themes to select post format to be applied to a post or
create different styles for different types of posts.
  Post via e-mail − This option uses e-mail address to create posts and publishes posts on
your blog through e-mail. To use this, you'll need to set up a secret e-mail account with a
POP3 access, and any mail received at this address will be posted.
 Mail Server − It allows reading the e-mails that you send to WordPress and stores them
for retrieval. For this, you need to have POP3 compatible mail server and it will have URI
address such as mail.example.com, which you should enter here.
 Login Name − To create posts, WordPress will need its own e-mail account. The Login
Name will use this e-mail address and should be kept as a secret as spammers will post
links redirecting to their own websites.
 Password − Set password for the above e-mail address.
 Default Mail Category − It allows selecting custom category for all the posts that are
published via Post by e-mail feature.
 Update Services − When you publish a new post, WordPress will automatically notify the
site update services in the box. See the Update Services on the codex for the long list of
possible services.
Step (3) − After filling all the above information, click on Save Changes button to save your
information.

In this chapter, we will study about Reading Settings in WordPress. Reading Setting is used to
set the content related to the front page. You can set the number of post to be displayed on the
main page.
Following are the steps to access the reading settings −
Step (1) − Click on Settings → Reading option in WordPress.
Step(2) − The Reading Settings page is displayed as shown in the following screen.
Following are the details of the fields on reading settings.
 Front page displays − This section is used to display the front page in any of the
following format −
o Your latest posts − It displays latest posts on the front page.
o A static page − It displays the static pages on the front page.
o Front Page − You can select the actual page you want to display on front page
from the drop down.
o Posts Page − You can select the page from the drop down which contains posts.
 Blog pages show at most − The number of posts to be displayed per page or site. By
default, it is set as 10.
 Syndication feeds show the most recent − The user can view the number of posts when
they download one of the site feeds. By default, it is set as 10.
 For each article in a feed, show − This section is used to display the post by selecting
any of the following formats −
o Full Text − It displays the complete post. It is set as default.
o Summary − It displays the summary of the post.
 Search Engine Visibility − After clicking on the checkbox, Discourage search engines
from indexing this site, your site will be ignored by the search engine.
Step(3) − After filling all the information, click on Save Changes button to save your Reading
Setting information.

In this chapter, we will study about Discussion settings in WordPress. WordPress discussion
setting can be defined as the interaction between the blogger and the visitors. These settings are
done by the admin to have a control over the posts/pages that come in through users.
Following are the steps to access the Discussion setting −
Step (1) − Click on Settings → Discussion option in WordPress.

Step (2) − The Discussion Settings page is displayed as shown in the following snapshot.
Following fields are seen in Discussion settings.
 Default article settings − These settings are default to the new pages you create or new
posts. This contains three more settings. They are −
o Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article − When you publish
articles then it sends a notification (sends pings and trackback) to other blogs.
o Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) − Accepts
pings from other blogs.
o Allow people to post comments on new articles − You can allow or disallow other
people to comment on your article using this setting.
You can change the settings as per your will for individual articles.
 Other Comment Settings − This setting has the following options −
o Comment author must fill out name and e-mail − When you check this box, it is
mandatory for visitors to fill their name and email address.
o Users must be registered and logged in to comment − If you check this box, only
those registered visitors can leave comments, if not checked anyone can leave any
number of comments.
o Automatically close comments on articles older than days − This option allows
you to accept comments only for a particular time period as per your wish.
o Enable threaded (nested) comments − When you check this option, visitors can
reply or have a discussion and get responses.
o Break comments into pages with top level comments per page and the page
displayed by default − If your pages are getting a lot of comments then you can
split them into different pages by checking this box.
o Comments should be displayed with the comments at the top of each page −
You can arrange the comments in the form of ascending or descending order.
 Email me whenever − This setting contains two options, namely −
o Anyone posts a comment − When you check into this box, the author gets an e-
mail for every single comment that is posted.
o A comment is held for moderation − This is used in case you do not want your
comment to be updated before it's moderated by the admin.
 Before a comment appears − This setting allows how your posts are controlled. There
are two more settings as followed −
o Comment must be manually approved − If you check this box then only the
approved comments by the admin can be displayed on the posts or pages.
o Comment author must have a previously approved comment − This can be
checked when you want to approve a comment of an author whose has commented
and his e-mail address matches the e-mail address of the previous posted comment.
Otherwise the comment is held for moderation.
 Comment Moderation − Contain only a specific number of links that are allowed into a
comment.
 Comment Blacklist − You can input your own spam words which you do not want your
visitors to enter into the comments, URL, e-mail etc.; later it would filter the comments.
 Avatars − Avatar is a small image that displays at the top-right-hand corner of the
dashboard screen beside your name. It is like your profile picture. Here you have a few
more options where you can set your avatar for WordPress site.
o Avatar Display − It displays your avatar besides your name when it is checked.
 o Maximum rating − You have a four other options of avatars you can use. They are
G, PG, R and X. This is the age section where you select according to which type of
audience you want to display your posts.
o Default Avatar − In this option, there are few more types of avatars with images;
you can keep these avatars according to your visitors e-mail address.
Step (3) − Click on Save Changes button to save the changes.

In this chapter, we will study about Media Settings in WordPress. It is used to set the height and
width of the images which you're going to use on your website.
Step (1) − Click on Settings → Media option in WordPress.

Step (2) − The Media Settings page is displayed as seen in the following screenshot.
Following are the details of the fields on Media settings −
 Thumbnail size − Set the size of the thumbnail.
 Medium size − Set the height and width of medium size images.
 Large size − Set width and height of larger images.
 Uploading files − After checking this checkbox, the uploaded image will be arranged into
year and month based folder.
Step (3) − After setting the dimension in pixels, click on Save Changes button. It saves your
media setting information.

In this chapter, we will learn about Permalink settings in WordPress. Permalink is a permanent
link to a particular blog post or category. It allows setting the default permalink structure. These
settings are used to add permalinks to your posts in WordPress. Following are the steps to access
permalink settings.
Step (1) − Click on Settings → Permalinks option from the left navigation menu.
Step (2) − When you click on Permalinks, the following page appears on the screen.
Here are a few settings you can make −
 Common settings −
Check any of the radio buttons to choose your permalink structure for your blogs
o Default − It sets the default URL structure in Wordpress.
o Day and name − It sets URL structure according to the date and name in your
posts.
o Month and name − It sets the URL structure according to the month and name in
your post.
o Numeric − It sets numbers in the URL structure in your post.
o Post name − It sets post name in the URL structure in your post.
o Custom Structure − It sets the URL structure of your choice by writing the desired
name in the given text box.
 Optional
 These are optional. You can add custom structure for main category or tag URL. If your
text box is empty then default settings is used. Here you have two options.
o Category Base − Add custom prefix for your category URL.
o Tag Base − Add custom prefix to your Tags URL.

Step (3) − Once you are done with changes, click on Save Changes button to save the permalink
settings.

In this chapter, we will study how to use plugins in your WordPress site. Plugin allows to easily
modify, customize or enhance WordPress blog or post. The WordPress Plugin is a software that
can be uploaded to expand the functionality of the site. They add services or features to
WordPress blog. Plugins are used to make your work easier. Following are the simple steps to
add plugins.
Step (1) − On the left side bar, Click on Plugins → Installed Plugins as shown in the screen.

Step (2) − The following page appears.

In this section, you can view the already installed plugins.
Step (3) − Click on → Plugins → Add New menu as shown in the following screen.
Step (4) − A list of plugins appears that are used in WordPress. Here you can directly install
plugins from the available list or you can upload it by clicking on Upload Plugin.
When you click on Upload Plugin you'll get the following page.

Click on Browse, it goes back to the page where you can select plugins from WordPress site.
And if you click on Choose File, you can add files from your system. Otherwise, you can
directly choose the plugin that you need and click on Install now as seen in the following
screenshot.
When you click on Install Now, the package starts to download and gets installed. Then, click
on Activate plugin to active that plugin to use in WordPress as seen in the following screen.

After clicking on Activate Plugin you'll get a message as Plugin activated and you can also find
the installed plugin in the list.
Below the plugin activated message, you can view few options such as All, Active,
Inactive and Update available.
When you click on Active the following page appears. Here you can view all the activated
plugins.
When we click on Inactive, the plugins which are available but are not activated gets displayed.
You can activate this plugin by clicking on Activate.

When you click on Update available, you'll get a list of plugins that must be updated. Click
on Update and you get a message as Updated.
Click on Bulk Actions and select any of the options. Click on Apply button to update, delete,
activate or deactivate each of the plugins by checking the boxes.

In Search Installed Plugins you can just type your plugin name in the text box that is already
installed and click on the Search Installed Plugins button.
When you click on the Search installed Plugin button you get the following page with your
respective plugin.

Step (5) − Click on Plugins → Editor from the side bar.

Step (6) − The following page gets displayed.
This page lets you edit your plugins. A few options are explained.
 Select plugin to edit − Allows you to select a plugin from the dropdown and edit it.
 Documentation − Allows you to select the tools from the dropdown to edit the plugin.
 Plugin files − Allows you to select files from the list and edit accordingly.
Finally, after editing the plugin files, click on Update file.

In this chapter, we will study about how to Add Categories in WordPress. Category is used to
indicate sections of your site and group related posts. It sorts the group content into different
sections. It is a very convenient way to organize the posts.
To access the Category section, follows the mentioned steps −
Step (1) − Click on Posts → Categories option in WordPress.
Step (2) − The Categories page is displayed as shown in the following screenshot.
Following are the details of the fields on Categories.
 Name − Enter the unique name of categories.
 Slug − A word chosen to describe your post. It is specified in the tags URL.
 Parent − By selecting the parent category from dropdown, you can set the particular
category as sub-category or can keep it as None.
 Description − Add brief description of your category. It is optional.
Step (3) − After filling all the information about Categories, click on Add New
Category button.
Step (4) − After clicking on Add New Category, the new created category will get displayed on
the right side of the page as shown in the following screen.
In this chapter, we will study the simple steps to Edit Categories in WordPress.
Following are the simple steps to edit categories in WordPress.
Step (1) − Click on Posts → Categories in WordPress.
Step (2) − You can view Category1 (Category1 was created in the chapter WordPress - Add
Category). When the cursor hovers on the Categories, then a few options get displayed below the
Category name. There are two ways to edit the categories i.e. Edit and Quick Edit
Edit − Click on Edit option in Categories section as seen in the following screenshot.
You can edit any of the required field, and then click Update button as shown in the following
screen.

Category fields are same from the chapter WordPress - Add Category.
Quick Edit − Click on Quick Edit option in Categories section as shown in the following
screen.
Here, you can only edit the Name and Slug of the category as seen in the following screen and
then finally click on Update Category button.

In this chapter, we will study about how to Delete Categories in WordPress.

Following are the simple steps to delete categories in WordPress.
Step (1) − Click on Posts → Categories in WordPress.

Step (2) − You can delete Category1 (Category1 was created in the chapter Wordpress - Add
Category). When the cursor hovers on the Categories, a few options get displayed below the
Category name. Click on Delete button as shown in the following screen.

When you click on delete, you will get a pop message asking for confirmation to delete the
particular category as shown in the following screenshot.
You can click on OK button and delete the category permanently.

In this chapter, we will study about how to Arrange Categories in WordPress. You can't arrange
categories directly in WordPress. Hence, you will need to install Category Order plugin to
arrange the created categories in a particular way.
Step (1) − Click on Posts → Category Order in WordPress. The Category Order menu
displays after adding the Category Order plugin. You can study how to install plugins in the
chapter Install Plugins.
Step (2) − In the following screen, you can see that the create categories section are not in order.
Step (3) − Now, you can rearrange your categories by just dragging the categories as per your
choice. Click on Order categories button to save the ordered categories.