It is going to be really simple. Just copy from Microsoft Word, paste into WordPress and click Publish. Select Categories and Tags to organize and add pictures to make your site more appealing. Scan these easy steps, and return to them if you run into trouble.
Printable PDF Instructions for Adding Your First Post
When you first go to your dashboard, you will see Posts and Pages on the left side.
For either one, click Add New. For what we talked about, I would use Posts.
Since you are going to be copying from Microsoft Word and pasting into WordPress, I think it would be easiest for you to use the Classic Editor. Look at the top of the page where it says Editor. Click the dropdown menu and select Classic Editor if it is not what is already showing.
If Classic Editor isn’t available, you can find instructions to add and activate the Plugin here: I bought WordPress Starter, now what? Don’t forget to Activate the Plugin.
Put the title in the title field. Then copy from Word and paste into the box. Make sure you are in Visual. (Text actually means code view. If you paste there, your formatting will not be what you are expecting.)
That is it. Just click Publish and you have added a Post or Page.
A lot of the little icons above the box should be things you’ve seen before. When you mouse over them, hover flags will tell you what they do.
Organize Your Posts with Categories and Tags
Select a Category. You can add new Categories. (I have Categories set up to show in the sidebar. You can also add them to the menu. If you run into trouble, ask for help.)
Choose from most used tags or type in tags. People can click on the tags to find all of the posts that are tagged with that word or words. Remember to Publish.
Add a Featured Image
The Featured image is the image that shows up on the top of the page and in search results by the excerpt. Pictures make your posts more appealing
To add an image to use as a featured image, click and either navigate to the picture you want or drag a picture into this box and click Set featured image. Remember to Publish.
Add Media (Photos)
If you want to, you can upload a lot of photos all at one time. Go to Media > Add New.
Either navigate to the files or drag them in. You can drag in a bunch of photos at one time. Then go through and fill out the fields for each photo.
Click on the photo and fill in the fields.
Alt Text is not visible on the page, but it is in the code.
Caption shows up below the photo unless it is used as the Featured Image.
Description is not visible on the page or in the code. You can make notes here.
You can set the Alignment when you add the media, or set it on the page later.
I have set the Medium size to be the size for you to use in your Posts and Pages. If the photo you upload is smaller than the Medium settings, it will automatically Insert into post at Full Size, whatever that is.
To add photos to a page or post, put the cursor where you want the image, then click the Add Media button.
You can upload new files (navigate to them or drag and drop).
Or you can choose photos you have already uploaded.
On the Theme you have right now, Pages have Featured images, but they don’t have Categories or Tags. Pages will show up when someone uses the Search box, but you won’t be able to organize them with Categories or Tags. Right now the site is set up to show the most recent thing you wrote as the front Home page. If you want to change it to a static page, let me know.
Everything else on these pages you can safely ignore right now.
Quick Edit
You can easily make sure you have filled everything in and make changes from the Posts or Pages list on the Dashboard. Hover over the Title and click Quick Edit when it appears.
You can add or change the Title, Date, Author, Categories and Tags.
This should be enough to get started. Remember, if you run into trouble, ask for help.