One of the most underused icons in the WordPress text editor is blockquote. And, it’s not just for citing another’s quotation. You can use it to highlight a main take-away point for your readers or bring attention to your most important point. Here’s how.
Make a Blockquote
The easiest way to apply formatting in WordPress is to already have the content created, highlight it, then click the formatting icon.
You’ll want to try this on a draft page to see how it looks and play with alignment.
Simply create a line or two of text, highlight it, then click the blockquote icon. It’s probably located in the top row of your text editor.
How Does it Look?
How the blockquote content appears on your site is under the control of your theme. So, be sure to see a preview of your page before publishing. Here’s what you want to look for:
- Font size, color, and format, meaning that it may be italics.
- Margins left and right. They may not be the same on both sides.
- Image on the left. Some will have a big quotation mark to the left of the text.
- Background color. Blockquotes can appear in a colored box that may have a different shading or border.
This is how a blockquote appears on BlogAid. As you can see, I use a background, slightly different font and have the margins centered. Plus, I center aligned the text.
Modify the Appearance
The only way to modify the appearance of the blockquote is to change your theme’s style sheet (CSS file). If you’re not accustomed to doing such things, hire a geek or designer. It’s a rather inexpensive thing to outsource.
Wrap Up
A blockquote can help break up long paragraphs of text and make your content easier to scan, while highlighting important points. It can be a good alternative to bullet points and colored text.
What creative ways can you use a blockquote on your site?
BlogAid offers classes and video tutorials on ways to use features of the Standard Text Editor
to make your posts better and keep readers on your site longer.
MaAnna is a geek who can still speak in plain English and mashes up her background in both the techie and artsy worlds to teach non-geeks, authors, artists, and other creative folks the ways of WordPress.
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