Want to edit galleries and slideshows in WordPress? Here are the detailed instructions:
Here’s how to make a slideshow on a page:
- Log into your WordPress website.
- If you have already created a page that you want to contain a slideshow, click on that page’s link, then click on “edit page” in the black bar at the top of your screen.
- Add some text into the editing window if you wish to introduce the slideshow with an explanation.
- Place your cursor in the editing window where you want your slideshow to appear.
- Click on the “add media” button above the editing window
- Now you will be looking at thumbnails of all the media files already uploaded to your media library. You can add more media files by clicking on the “upload files” link just under the words, “insert media”.
- Click “Create Gallery” in the left margin of the media library window.
- Click on each thumbnail of a photo you want to include in this gallery (which you can make into a slideshow; instructions to follow).
- Click on the blue “create new gallery” button at the bottom right of the media library window.
- A new window now appears, showing the thumbnails of the photos you have entered into this new gallery. To make the gallery into a slideshow, in the right hand portion of the window, in the “type” window, select “slideshow” in the drop-down menu. Note: You may discover that this pull-down menu does not appear in your edit gallery window. In this case, install the JetPack plugin, configure the Carousel feature of Jetpack, and click the “text” tab of the page you are editing. You will see a line of code there enclosed in brackets which ends with ids= followed by numbers and commas. Just after the first bracket insert this code: gallery type=”slideshow”. When you have inserted the code click on the “update” button at the right side of the page. The next time you edit galleries on this website the pull-down menu enabling you to select thumbnails or slideshow as your gallery type will appear and operate properly.
- Click on ” the “insert gallery” button at the bottom right portion of your screen.
- You will be taken back to the editing window of the page you’re working on. You’re almost done. Finally, click the “update” button at the right of your screen.
- Check the front side (public side) of your website by clicking on the “view page” link at the top of the editing window.
- You might need to refresh your web browser to make the page work properly. In fact, whenever you complete an editing task it’s a good idea to refresh your browser, i.e., load a new copy of the page. Why? Because your browser stores prior versions of pages in order not to have to construct pages on the fly every time one is summoned. But the version it has stored may not be the latest one, the one you just so painstakingly edited! So get in the habit of refreshing your browser. You do this by clicking on the little curved arrow, which in most browsers is located along the top of the window somewhere.
If you want to edit an already existing slideshow:
- Log into your website.
- Click on the link to the page that contains the slideshow. The easiest way to do this is to go to the public side of your site and click on that page’s link in your site’s page navigation menu.
- Next, click on “edit page” in the black bar at the top of your window.
- You will now be looking at the editing window of that page. At the right hand of your screen, make sure you have the “visual” tab selected, not the “text” one. The visual choice gives you a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get view. The text choice shows you the html code for that page.
- You will see the area in which the slideshow resides within a dotted, colored rectangle. In the middle of that rectangle is an icon showing two little squares, one superimposed on the other. Click on that icon. It looks like this:
- Immediately you will see two little squares appear in the top left corner of that rectangle. Click on the left one, the one that says “edit gallery” when you hover over it.
- To add new photos to the gallery click on the “add to gallery” link at the left of your screen.
- To remove photos from the gallery, click on the “x” that appears when you hover over a thumbnail.
- You can change the type of gallery (either slideshow or thumbnails) by making your selection in the “type” pull-down menu to the right of your screen.
- When you have made all the changes you wish to the gallery, click on the “update gallery” button at the bottom right of your screen.
- Finally, click on the “update” button of the page you’ve been working on.
- Then, refresh your browser and check how the page looks and performs by clicking on the “view page” link at the top of your screen.