A page is for content that stays put: the “About” and “Contact” pages. Use a page when the content is not a single step-by-step instruction (that is a task, see Add or edit a task) and not an announcement with a date (that is a news story, see Add or edit a news story). Pages have no categories. They can be nested under each other to build a section, and each page can have its own layout. This article goes through the page edit screen from top to bottom and then describes what staff see.
Go to Pages, then Add page, or open an existing page from the All pages list. Contributors can write and save drafts, authors can publish their own pages, and editors and administrators can publish and edit any page. Only administrators can edit or delete the front page. Client sites sometimes use custom roles, so check with your intranet team if you cannot see a page you expect to. See Roles and capabilities.
Title and permalink
The title is the heading of the page, the text shown in the breadcrumb trail and in the left navigation, and the link text in listings and search results. Keep it short and specific: “Expenses policy”, not “Policy on the claiming of expenses”. Anything in square brackets, such as “[Draft]” or “[Needs review]”, is stripped from the title shown to staff, so you can use brackets as a working note without staff seeing it.
The permalink under the title is made from the title when you first save. For a child page it also includes the parent’s permalink, so a page called “Our history” under “About us” has the address /about-us/our-history/. Select Edit next to the permalink to shorten it if the title is long.
Content
Write the page in the main editor. Use Heading 2 for the main sections and Heading 3 for sub-sections; the Long page layout builds its table of contents from them. Keep the first sentence plain, because card listings show the start of the content when there is no excerpt. To list the pages below this one, you can use various templates; the about template lists cards of sub-pages, the page with left nav shows sub-pages in the left hand navigation menu. Or you can add the shortcode, see Display a list of sub-pages, or build a grid of cards with , see Display a grid of linked cards. The editor's shortcode button lists the others.
Page Attributes
This box on the right controls where the page sits and how it looks.
- Parent: choose another page to make this one a child of it. The parent appears in the breadcrumb trail, in the permalink and in the left navigation, and the child is listed on the parent by the and shortcodes. The list includes draft, pending, private and scheduled pages as well as published ones, so you can build a section before any of it goes live. Leave it as (no parent) for a top-level page.
- Template: the layout. Default template is a two-column page with a right-hand sidebar. The other entries are either alternative layouts for ordinary pages (Page with left navigation, Page with left navigation (wide), Full-width page, Long page) or special pages that build their content for you (Home page, How do I?, News listing, Staff directory, Teams and so on). Forum and Forum simple are listed only when the bbPress plugin is active. See Available templates for what each one does and Change a page layout for switching between them.
- Order: a number that sets where this page sits among its brothers and sisters in the left navigation and in the and lists. Lower numbers come first, and pages with the same number are sorted by title. Leave it at 0 to sort by title alone.
Featured image
Optional. The featured image is not shown on the page itself on any of the standard page layouts. It is used by the cards and listings that link to the page: the and shortcodes and aggregator pages. Set one when the page will be promoted somewhere, and leave it empty otherwise. See Set a featured image.
Excerpt
A one or two sentence summary shown by cards and listings that link to the page. If you leave it empty, the first 30 words of the content are used instead, which reads badly when the page starts with a heading or a list. The theme adds this box to pages; it is hidden until you tick Excerpt under Screen Options at the top right of the edit screen. See Generate an excerpt.
Discussion
Tick or untick Allow comments to show or remove the comment form. New pages take the default from Settings, Discussion, which on most intranets means comments are off. Comments are only printed on the default layout and on Page with left navigation (wide); the other page layouts never show them, whatever this box says. The box is hidden until you tick Discussion under Screen Options.
Boxes below the editor
Four boxes appear under the content on every page except the front page. They work the same way on every content type, so Boxes on every edit screen has the detail. In short:
- Document attachments: files for people to download, listed under the content with a Documents heading, a file-type icon and the type and size. Select Add document for each one and give it a Display title if the file name is unclear.
- Related content: pick other pages, tasks, news stories, blog posts, events, projects, vacancies or training courses to list in the right-hand sidebar under a Related heading. Pages that list this page are shown too, unless an administrator has turned on Hide reciprocal related links under Options, General. Pages have no categories or tags, so nothing is added automatically. This list is shown on the default layout and on Page with left navigation only.
- Sidebar content: free-format content for the top of the right-hand sidebar, above the related list and any widgets. A contact box or a short warning works well. It is shown on the same two layouts as Related content.
- Keywords: extra words for search, such as acronyms, old names and synonyms. There is no need to repeat words already in the title or content. Separate words with spaces; commas are turned into spaces when you save. Words in square brackets become extra A to Z entries. See Find out the difference between tags and keywords.
A to Z letters
When the A to Z module is on, an A to Z letters box appears on the right. Tick the letters the page should be listed under on the A to Z index, usually the first letter of the title and of any common alternative name. See Add an item to the A to Z index.
What staff see on a page
On the default layout a page is laid out in this order from the top: the breadcrumb trail (Home, then each parent page, then this page; see Understand the breadcrumb trail), a preview badge if the page is not yet published, the title, the content, the Documents list, then the comments. The right-hand sidebar shows the Sidebar content, then the Related list, then any widgets placed in the Page Sidebar widget area under Appearance, Widgets (see Add an advert or campaign to the sidebar). No date, author or featured image is shown.
The other page layouts change this:
| Layout | What is different |
|---|---|
| Page with left navigation | Adds a left-hand column with the page's parents, the page itself and its published child pages in Order sequence, with sister pages shown once the page is two or more levels deep. The Page Sidebar widgets move to the left column. The right column shows Sidebar content, Related and the Page Sidebar (Right) widgets. Comments are not shown. |
| Page with left navigation (wide) | The same left-hand navigation and Page Sidebar widgets, but no right column, so the content takes three-quarters of the width. Sidebar content and Related are not shown. Comments are shown. |
| Full-width page | Content across the whole width with no sidebar on either side. Documents are shown; Sidebar content, Related, widgets and comments are not. |
| Long page | Builds a Contents list from the Heading 2 and Heading 3 headings in the content, kept in view on the left as the reader scrolls, with a Back to top link. With no headings it behaves like a full-width page. No sidebar content, related list, widgets or comments. |
Front page extras
The page set as the front page under Settings, Reading normally uses the Home page template, and only administrators can edit or delete it. Its edit screen has no Document attachments, Related content or Sidebar content boxes. Instead it has a Homepage box:
- Emergency message style: Hide (the default), Green, Blue, Amber, Red or Blank. Choosing anything but Hide reveals the message box.
- Emergency message: shown at the top of the home page above the widgets, in a coloured alert box of the chosen colour, or with no box when the style is Blank. To take it down, set the style back to Hide; the text is kept for next time.
- Campaign message: shown at the bottom of the home page below the widgets whenever it has content. Use it for a standing promotion or a seasonal campaign.
See Home page template for the rest of the home page, and Tips for managing emergency communications for how to use the emergency message well.
Publishing and search
Select Save Draft to keep working later, or Preview to see the page with a "Draft preview" badge at the top. Set a future date in the Publish box to schedule it; the preview then says "Scheduled preview" with the date and time. Select Publish when it is ready. See Save, preview, schedule and publish pages and posts.
Published pages are searchable straight away, with the title, content and keywords all indexed. A page whose parent is still a draft is published and searchable in its own right; the breadcrumb trail hides the unpublished parent from staff who cannot edit it. To keep a page out of search results, for example a landing page that only holds a list of links, use the Relevanssi box on the edit screen: see Stop something appearing in search results.