introduction

These videos give a very helpful quick tour of the main features you will need to know.

The following instructions give an overview of the basics needed to edit a website built using WordPress & Elementor. Not all aspects of the WordPress admin area are covered in this guide – just the essentials for editing Elementor pages. For more detailed infomation about the Elementor widgets see docs.elementor.com, and for a step-by-step guide to using WordPress go to our How to use WordPress page.

accessing the editor

Don’t try to edit any page created using the Elementor plugin using the standard WordPress dashboard. Instead, do one of the following…

  • On the pages overview (www.domain.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page) hover over a page and click ‘Edit with Elementor’
  • On a single page edit window (eg. www.domain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=487&action=edit) click the big ‘Edit with Elementor’ button
  • On the front end (while logged in) click the ‘Edit with Elementor’ link in the admin bar

elementor overview

page structure

Each page is made up of containers which have a pink outline when hovered over. Widgets then get dropped into containers to create the page.

To add a new container simply click the ‘+’ button at the bottom of a page or add a ‘container’ element from the sidebar.

adding, duplicating, deleting

All elements can be duplicated and dragged around to change the order essentially allowing them to be used as building blocks for a page.

Hover over a container and you will see three icons – the first adds a new container, the second allows you to move the container and the third deletes the selected container. Hover over container or widget and you will see small squares – use these to move the elements.

Whether editing a container or widget, right click for further options. Helpful options to note are…

  • Duplicate – You can duplicate elements or containers to save time replicating them.
  • Copy/Paste – You can copy and paste from different pages, or even different sites.
  • Save as Template/Global – You can save repeating widgets or containers as a template or global so you can easily access them on other pages.

saving pages

At the bottom of the sidebar is the VERY IMPORTANT ‘Update’ button which you should get into the habit of clicking on a regular basis to avoid losing changes!

editing tab overview

Exactly what shows in the sidebar will depend on what is selected in the main preview window.

For all widgets you’ll see three options in the sidebar – Layout, Style and Advanced.

  • Layout gives the means to edit the text, image, icon, link etc for widgets.
  • Style provides options for background images, typographic styles (font size, colour and so on) etc.
  • Advanced enables you to set margin, padding, z-index etc. If you don’t know what these are then ignore them!

general tutorial

This is a video explaining some of the basics of creating and editing new pages. Always remember to click ‘update’ to save any changes you make…

responsive editing/preview

At the bottom of the sidebar there is an icon of a computer screen which you can press to preview the site at desktop, tablet and mobile screen sizes. This is very useful to ensure that any amends work well across all devices.

You’ll see this same icon on a number of elements (text size, alignment etc.). By default, whatever you set for desktop will flow down to tablet and mobile but where there is a computer screen icon next to a setting you can choose to have different parameters for each screen size.

To get a proper preview of the site use Ctrl / Cmd + P to enter preview mode (use that same shortcut to exit preview mode).

global widgets

Global widgets are widgets that we have pre-designed to enable you to

  • maintain a visual consistency more easily across the site
  • use a single element in multiple areas of a site which can be updated centrally

For example, if you want to add a button we can set a global widget so that the style of that button matches the rest of the site so you don’t have to manually style each one. 

Global widgets, by default, are linked meaning that if you edit one it will update everywhere it’s used on the site. If you want to use global widgets to enable pre-styled elements which are different in each instance (eg. a different URL from a button) then add the widget, click ‘Unlink’ and then edit the element.

Access global widgets by clicking the top right icon (9 dots in a grid) and then clicking ‘Global’.

templates

Templates can be used to create whole pages or sections within a page. Where a global widget is just one element, a template can contain a mix of sections, rows and widgets.

The section below is one example of a template…

Get in touch

If you want to ask us any questions, please do drop us an email…

creating banners/ads

Banners and adverts can be created using Elementor. If you have an upcoming event or series you may have lots of information you want to communicate – a good idea is to create a simple advert/banner that links to a page with more info. This is more friendly to read and will be legible on mobile and tablet (where a flyer that’s been pasted into the site will probably not be).

Here’s a few examples of what can be created using Elementor…

Christmas Carols

20 December 2017 • 7pm

Pizza Night

4 August 2023 • 6pm

Craft Day

Saturday 19 October 2021

This is a video explaining how to create a simple banner like the ones above.