How to Format Paragraphs in WordPress Posts

Unhide your second row of buttons in the post editor to format paragraphs.

The WordPress post editor runs on TinyMCE, a word processing plug-in that offers formatting tools similar to those found in software such as Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org. You can format paragraphs in TinyMCE by highlighting the text and selecting "Paragraph" from a drop-down, but the drop-down is hidden by default. An HTML editing mode is also available that allows you to create and format paragraphs using HTML tags and inline CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) styles.

Instructions

1. Navigate to "Posts" from the left-hand menu in the WordPress dashboard. Click the title of the post you want to edit or click "Add New" at the top of the screen.

2. Inspect the "Visual" tab on the top of the editor box and make sure it is highlighted. Press "Alt+Shift+Z" to display both rows of icons on the editor's toolbar. Click the drop-down box on the left side of the tool bar. Select "Paragraph" and begin writing your paragraphs. Press the "Enter" key whenever you want to start a new paragraph.

3. Highlight text you want to convert to paragraph formatting. Click the drop-down box on the toolbar and select "Paragraph." Keep the text highlighted and click one of the toolbar buttons to format your text with a different alignment, color or indenting.

4. Click the "HTML" tab at the top of the editor box to edit your post using HTML. Place "<p>" tags around any text you want to format as a paragraph. Set the "text-align" CSS property to "justify" or "right" to use an alignment other than left. For example:

   <p style="text-align: justify;">This a justified paragraph.</p>