WordPress is quite an easy and intuitive site to use. The functions and facilities that are on offer on WordPress are perfect to make and run blogs on it and it has given many new and experienced writers a platform to share their work on a large scale. WordPress over time offers you the updates that let you add the new stuff the version has on offer to your CMS that makes your working on the WordPress easier and better.

Many of us use WordPress in our daily lives and we use it in a way that we are used to. There are certain functions in WordPress that we use on the daily basis and this limits us to those functions only. We tend to overlook the other features that are on offer and we often familiarize ourselves with the most obvious ones that we use in our day-to-day workflow. To be honest, there are a host of other WordPress features that are on offer which we hardly use, some remain hidden and some are overlooked. In the process we lose track of the exciting features WordPress has on offer and we don’t use its full potential.

In this article, we are going to discuss the hidden features that can make your work comfortable and efficient.

Feature #1: The Full-Screen Writing Mode

The full-screen mode lets you do all the viewing and writing by making the WordPress come alike at the full screen of your laptop. The full-screen viewing mode makes you work in a distraction-free environment as it lets you see the content on full scale and you’re not notified by the other things that you usually get notified from while working on the normal view.

The minimize toolbar appears only when you want it to when you put the pointer over it. Once you resume the writing it slowly fades in the background leaving a full screen at your disposal.

Where to find the full-screen mode:

To enter the full screen while working you have to access the top right corner of the WordPress editor and click the button. To return to the original screen, just press the exit full screen with the help of the pointer.

Feature #2: Screen Options

While working on WordPress we tend to ignore many features that we can use to make our work a lot easier. The screen option lets you customize the needs and working style of the posts. It gives you control over what you want to display on the screen or not. You can control which news feed you want to display and which blog posts you don’t want to display.

Where to find the screen options:

You can access the screen options in the upper right corner of the dashboard with the help of the pointer. When you click on it, it shows you the list of the options on the screen. It lets you open and close panels and gives you the freedom to control everything that is on screen.

Feature #3: Making Posts Sticky

With this feature, you can make your post appear sticky on WordPress. The posts that are generally hidden from the view can be made to appear on the top of the screen by this feature. The sticky posts are the first things that greet the visitor of the blog and here you can display the most important and popular post of your blog using this feature.

Where to find the post sticky option:

The option can be accessed from the publishing panel within the post editor. You have to click on the edit option that takes you to the check box that displays the stick option. After hitting the ok, the post on which the feature is applied gets marked as sticky and is pinned to the top of the blog. The feature can be used for older posts too.

Feature #4: Post Scheduling

This feature lets you publish your posts automatically at the pre-described time without you having to be present there to do it. With this feature, you can actually make the posts while you are away from the system. This helps you a lot when you are traveling and you feel the need to update your blog with some posts. Instead of publishing the posts, you can schedule the posts of each article with the exact precision so that it gets displayed at the mentioned time on the blog.

Where to find the post schedule:

You can find the post scheduling at the publishing pane. Go to the publish and click edit to open the date and time options. From there you can adjust the minute, hour, day, and month you want your article to appear on. After doing the adjustments you can click ok and the publish button changes to the schedule. Click on the schedule button and it gets done. This helps you to fill in the details and forget it as the time comes; it automatically posts the content on your blog without you getting worried about and checking it.

Feature #5: Content Visibility

In WordPress, you can limit the posts. You can set it according to whom you want to allow it to be seen or not. The content visibility can be set to three settings – Public, Private, and Password protected. Whenever you post the content on your blog it goes on the default setting of public, that is, it is visible to everyone who visits your blog. Private content is visible to only those who have the authorization to the blog. The content with the private visibility is visible to the people who are logged in or who have permission of access from the administrator. Content protected with the password can only be seen by the ones who have the password.

Where to find content visibility:

The level of content visibility can be set at the same place where the sticky posts are set. You need to click the edit on the visibility that opens the options and then you can define the level of visibility you want. After selecting the level, clicking on the ok button confirms your setting.

Feature #6: Page Break

When you post something on the blog you need to break it down at the levels to give it a nice look. In blogging, you just cannot keep on typing and posting the content. Writing needs a proper break in between that gives its user a nice view about what he’s going to read. There are some topics that need their own space and it’s not always a reader-friendly way to post the content. This is where the page break feature comes in handy.

To make the readers safe from scrolling down many pages, there’s a page break. By using the page break you can divide your posts into multiple pages that can be accessed by their individual numbers.

Where to find the page break:

To introduce the page break you have to go through the shortcode that lets you define it. After adding it to the appropriate place, make sure that you insert it in the text editor instead of the visual editor.

Feature #7: The Read-More Tag

The read more tag allows you to display a number of characters from each of the posts. Take this as an introduction to the posts that are been posted on WordPress. It allows you to divide the content you post manually at the click of the button. With the help of it, you can insert the link where you want to display it, and then everything that is in front of it is displayed as the post’s preview on the blog page.

Where to find the read more link:

To use the read more link, you have t use the insert read more tag button. Place the cursor where you want the area of the article to break and then click it. A line of the indication appears signaling that the selection has been made. After doing the same, the text editor shows you the introduction of the page break signifying the breakpoint. This modification brings up the link with the text you have defined in the code.

Feature #8: Emptying the Trash Automatically

This feature allows you to empty the trash bin in WordPress automatically. The deletion that happens deletes the posts, pages, attachments, and comments in the contained posts. Once you set the feature it does all that on its own without you having to do it yourself. Apart from the cleaning, you can even set the time and schedule the cleaning.

This feature comes in handy to the people who have to administer several sites at the same time and they find it hard to keep a tab on the cleaning. This feature makes sure that the trash of the client websites is not flowing over.

Where to find the automatic trash cleaning:

To set the automatic trash cleaning, you need to add the code in the wp-config.php file. The number defined shows the days the content is kept before being cleaned out. If you set the number at 0, the trash will be disabled and the things you delete will be deleted permanently.

Feature #9: Changing the Autosave Interval and Directly Paste Media Links and Tweets!

WordPress allows you to autosave the work you post and write. At times when you forget to save the work and log out, you realize that you have ended up losing all the data, and then it gets frustrating to type up all the data all over again. This feature allows you to automatically save the work you do on WordPress.

Where to find the autosave settings:

You can access it by modifying the wp-config.php. Adding the code to the file and then adjusting the number of seconds between the autosave saves your file in the defined time.

Directly pasting media links helps you spice up the content that you post in your blog over time to time. The links can be of YouTube videos, Instagram photos, songs from SoundCloud. You can directly paste the links by defining the address. WordPress automatically recognizes the link from the sources and embeds them on its own.

Where to find the embed media:

Just copy the URL and post it right into the post on the image. Make sure the link is not hyperlinked and the rest is taken care of by WordPress. This works with media files as well as with the files that have only text in them. All you have to do is to copy the URL from the address bar and paste it on the content as you do with a YouTube link.

Feature #10: Changing the Default Media Size

In WordPress, you can change the size of the default media file. When you post the media on the blog, you must have not that each one comes with its own set of sizes. Some can be very big and can eat up a lot of space in the server. To make sure that your page is running smoothly and you have all the necessary space left, you can resize the file. It’s not necessary to use the original size of the file as you can use the thumbnail of it which will take far lesser space.

Depending on the theme you have chosen for the blog, WordPress might have a standard size for the file or the image that you upload. For the convenience of the user, WordPress automatically saves the images in the size and dimension you need.

Where to find the media file size:

To find the media file size to change the size of the image and the file you choose to upload, go under the settings > media. After selecting the media to enter the pixel dimensions you need for the thumbnails from the medium and large options and then save the changes you have made.