How to Publish Posts and Manage Categories in WordPress Print

This article covers the everyday WordPress writing tasks: clearing out the sample content on a new site, writing and publishing posts, deleting posts and organising them with categories.

Remove the sample content

A new WordPress site comes with a "Hello world!" post, a sample comment and a "Sample Page". Remove them before you launch:

1. Go to Posts › All Posts, hover over Hello world! and click Trash. Its sample comment goes with it.
2. Go to Pages › All Pages, hover over Sample Page and click Trash.
3. Check Comments and trash any remaining sample comment.

Write and publish a post

1. Go to Posts › Add New Post.
2. Type your title, then click below it to start writing. Press + to add blocks such as images, headings or lists.
3. In the Post settings on the right, choose one or more Categories and add Tags (press Enter after each).
4. Optionally, set a Featured image and a short Excerpt.
5. Click Publish, check the settings in the panel that opens, then click Publish again to confirm.

Not ready yet? Click Save draft. To publish later, click the date next to Publish in the post settings and choose a future date; the button changes to Schedule.

Delete posts

1. Go to Posts › All Posts.
2. To delete one post, hover over it and click Trash.
3. To delete several, tick them (or tick the box in the header row to select the whole page), choose Move to Trash from Bulk actions and click Apply.

Trashed posts can be restored from the Trash link at the top of the list. WordPress empties the trash automatically after 30 days, or you can click Empty Trash to delete them permanently straight away.

Add, edit and delete categories

1. Go to Posts › Categories.
2. To add one, fill in Name, optionally a Slug (the web address part) and a Parent Category to make it a subcategory, then click Add New Category.
3. To rename one, hover over it and click Quick Edit, change the name and slug, and click Update Category.
4. To delete one, hover over it and click Delete. Posts in it aren't deleted; any post left with no category moves to the default category.

The "Uncategorized" category

"Uncategorized" is WordPress's default category, so there's no Delete option for it. Rename it instead with Quick Edit, for example to "News", and change its slug to match. If you'd rather use a different category as the default, choose it under Settings › Writing › Default Post Category; the old one can then be deleted.

Good to know

• Changing a category or post slug changes its web address. If the old address has been shared or indexed, set up a redirect (see how to redirect a domain or page).
• Before big content clear-outs, take a backup with WordPress Toolkit.