When I first began blogging, I would outline and write posts in a Word document. Only after I finished would I paste the post into WordPress and hit Publish.

But since then, I’ve found that WordPress is a powerful platform for creating content; not just publishing. I use other text editors far less than I used to – these days I write directly in WordPress.

One reason that writing posts in WordPress proves to be so easy is its many keyboard shortcuts.

In this post I’ll list these shortcuts, which will help you to write your posts more quickly. Welcome to faster blogging!

Types of Shortcuts

WordPress has two broad kinds of shortcuts that you can use when editing posts and pages:

1. Control + Letter. For these, you hold down the Control key and a letter. (If you use a Mac, press the Command key instead of the Control key.)
2. Alt + Shift + Letter. For these, you hold down the Alt key, the Shift key, and a letter.

All you need to do is hold down all each key in the order that they’re listed until you’re holding them all down, then let go. WordPress will then complete the corresponding action. In the interests of being thorough I’m making this sound far more complicated than it is – trust me, it’s a piece of cake.

In the next few sections, we’ll look at shortcuts that you can use for different kinds of tasks.

WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts for Editing

These shortcuts will help you efficiently edit text:

• Ctrl + c: Copy text
• Ctrl + v: Paste text
• Ctrl + a: Select all text in your post
• Ctrl + z: Undo your last action
• Ctrl + y: Redo an action that you just undid
• Alt + Shift + w: Go into WordPress’ full-screen, distraction-free writing mode. It’s pretty nifty

WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts for Formatting

Just like word processors, WordPress gives you different ways to format your paragraph text:

• Ctrl + b: Bold text.
• Ctrl + i: Italicize text.
• Ctrl + u: Underline text.
• Alt + Shift + d: Strike through text.

There are also shortcuts for text alignment:

• Alt + Shift + c: Align text to the center
• Alt + Shift + l: Align text to the left
• Alt + Shift + r: Align text to the right

WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts for Headers

Headings (or more appropriately, sub-headers) are used to separate the sections of each post you write.

You’ll normally use H1 headings for the title of a post (the H1 heading will be applied automatically), then H2 headings for each main section in the article. You may choose to use further sub-headings like H3 or H4 to create sub-sections in your posts. (I don’t recommend you go any lower than H3 though.)

These shortcuts are easy. Just click on the line you want to make a heading out of and press one of the key combinations – you don’t even need to highlight the text. Here you go:

• Ctrl + 1: H1 heading (typically used for the page/post header)
• Ctrl + 2: H2 heading (standard size for sub-headers)
• Ctrl + 3: H3 heading
• Ctrl + 4: H4 heading
• Ctrl + 5: H5 heading
• Ctrl + 6: H6 heading

WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts for Lists and Blockquotes

Lists are great – they can break up the structural monotony of a post and make it look more inviting. I’ve been using lists throughout this post.

Meanwhile, blockquotes come in handy when you want to feature an extended quote. How themes handle blockquotes tends to vary, but at the least they’ll usually be indented and italicized (like this).

You’ll almost certainly use both in your time as a bloggers. Here’s how to create them quickly and easily:

• Alt + Shift + o: Create a numbered list (1., 2., 3., etc.)
• Alt + Shift + u: Create an unnumbered list (like the lists in this post)
• Alt + Shift + q: Create a blockquote

WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts for Links

There’s more to a post than text, and links are the currency of the web, and vital to you being able to get from one page to the next.

To add, edit or remove a link, just highlight the text you’d like to format and press one of the following key combinations:

• Ctrl + k: Add or edit a link
• Alt + Shift + a: Add a link
• Alt + Shift + s: Remove a link

WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts for Images and Media Files

I say shortcuts, but there is in fact just one shortcut for images. However, it helps you add media files to your post a lot faster:

• Alt + Shift + m: Insert media. This shortcut opens up the window where you can upload files, pick images from your media gallery, and more.

And a Quick Reminder…

If you ever forget any of these shortcuts, you can always pull up a quick reminder whenever you’re in the WordPress text editor (within the Post or Page screen).  And yes, there’s a shortcut for that:

• Alt + Shift + h: Brings up a list of WordPress keyboard shortcuts

Any questions? Fire away in the comments section below!

Photo Credit: John Ward