Post formats premiered in WordPress back in 2011, allowing you to inject some life into your blog section. Sadly, a lot of themes no longer support them. But with a pinch of Gutenberg and a sprinkle of code, you can still mold your blog section into the masterpiece it should be.
Post formats were last featured in WordPress’ Twenty Seventeen and are no longer supported in the more recent WP themes.
So the question is, with fewer themes supporting them, should they still be used at all? If so, how? And if not, is there another way to format your posts?
It’s WordPress, my dear friends, of course there are other ways!
(*Hint: one big way starts with “Guten” and ends with “berg” ;)).
And if you’re REALLY keen for a 2011 throwback, you can still add post formatting to themes with code.
But before we get to your array of post formatting options, let’s start simple and look at what WordPress post formats are and how they can be used.
What is a WordPress Post Format?
If you want your blog page to be more than a never-ending wall of text, post formats can help jazz things up with a simple click.
They let you change the way your theme displays content – whether that be allowing you to add videos, images or simply displaying things like quotes in a snazzier way.
All themes style their formats slightly differently (we’ll take a look at a few examples shortly), and with some not supporting them at all, it can be hard trying to get the right look for your blog section.
How To Use Post Formats
If your theme does support post formats, you will see this little drop-down when you go to create a new post:
If not, you can select a new theme which supports post formats.
To make finding supported themes easier, filter your search in the theme directory by “Post Formats.”
Check out options like Codex, Manta, or Diginews if you’re looking for a solid theme which supports post formats.
Alternatively, you can add some styling yourself using code (we’ll come onto that later.)
Use the feature filter option when looking for a new theme.But Wait…
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This article was written by Kirstan Norman and originally published on WPMU DEV Blog.