Do you want to compose text on your WordPress website?
Redaction can be a way to share information with your visitors without harming anyone’s privacy. You can even use it as an unusual paywall or a game where you challenge visitors to fill in the missing words.
In this article, we will show you how you can compose text in WordPress.
Why write text in WordPress?
The writing is where the text is edited, hiding sensitive parts of it. It is a way to share information and documents with the general public while keeping confidential and sensitive information private.
The newsroom can help you share real-world examples without violating your privacy policy. For example, if you’re showing visitors how to write a great CV, you might want to include some actual CV examples you’ve received. You can use redaction to block each applicant’s name, address, and other personal information.
When you compose text, that content still exists in your WordPress dashboard. This means that you can easily remove the redaction at any time.
Copywriting can also be an eye-catching way to preview the type of content visitors can expect when they sign up to your WordPress membership site. Visitors can then purchase a membership to remove the redaction and enjoy the full, uncensored version.
With that being said, let’s see how you can easily compose text on your WordPress website.
How to compose text in WordPress
The easiest way to compose text in WordPress is by using Eyes Only. This plugin will replace any redacted text with a black block.
If the visitor highlights the block, they will simply see the word REMOVED in white letters.
You can see an example of what this would look like in the image below.
Another option is to automatically replace any word or phrase with an alternative chosen by you. For example, if you can’t use a customer’s name on your small business website, you can replace the information with a vaguer word like “customer.”
First, you will need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you can compose any text by editing the HTML in the WordPress code editor. To get started, simply open the page or post.
Then click the dotted icon in the top right corner and click ‘Code Editor’.
Next, find the piece of text you want to compose. At the beginning of the text, type the following tag:
At the end of the redacted text, write:
In the image below, we are redacting ‘the Recipient’.
To compose more text, simply follow the same process described above.
If you want to return to the default plain text block editor at any time, simply click ‘Exit Code Editor’.
After you’ve added tags to all the text you want to compose, you can go ahead and publish or refresh the page.
Just keep in mind that the text will not appear redacted while you are logged into your WordPress account. To verify that the text is redacted, you will need to log out of your account or visit the page in an incognito tab in your web browser.
Another option is to automatically replace specific words with alternative words. This is useful if there is a word that you never want to display on your site, such as the name of a sensitive vendor or customer.
By configuring the plugin to automatically compose a word, you can ensure that the information never appears on your website. This automated workflow can also save you a lot of time and hard work.
Since it replaces each redacted word with an alternate word, this method can also make your pages easier to read and more pleasing to look at, especially when compared to a page that has a lot of strikethrough content.
To compose a word or phrase automatically, go to Settings » Eyes only. Then go ahead and click the ‘Add New’ button.
In the new ‘Text’ field, simply type the text you want to auto-compose. Just keep in mind that text replacement is case sensitive.
In the ‘Replacement’ field, type the text you want to display instead of the redacted text.
In the image below, we are replacing ‘Jane Smith’ with ‘Our Client’.
You can then go ahead and click the ‘Add’ button.
If you want to automatically replace more words or phrases, simply repeat the process outlined above.
As we already mentioned, text replacement is case sensitive. If you want to redact a word regardless of whether it’s capitalized, you’ll need to create two separate text replacement rules.
One of these rules should replace the uppercase version, and one should replace the non-caps version, as you can see in the following image.
When you’re happy with the redaction rules you’ve created, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen.
The plugin will now scan your site and automatically replace any matches it finds.
At some point, you may no longer want to hide a particular word or phrase. In this case, you can simply delete the compose rule. This will automatically remove the masking and display the original words on your WordPress blog.
To remove a redaction rule, simply go to Settings » Eyes only.
Then hover your mouse over the rule you want to delete and click the ‘Delete’ link when it appears.
You will need to confirm that you want to delete the rule.
If you still want to continue, click ‘Yes’.
Finally, it’s time to click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom. Now, if you visit any page or post that has the original word, you will see that the plugin is no longer redacting the text.
We hope this article has helped you learn how to compose text in WordPress. You can also check out our ultimate WordPress security guide and the best live chat software.
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