In WordPress you have the option of creating new Pages and Posts by clicking add new post or add new page in the corresponding sections of your admin panel.
How you use these options – whether you want a new post, or a new page – will depend on how your blog or website is structured. A typical rule of thumb is to think of pages as navigation items, or different pages that will be linked from your navigation bar/menu, while posts are individual posts in a blog. (In the case of this website, each topic is a separate page so that they can be linked to the right of this text.)
In both cases you can access various options on the lefthand menu in the admin panel.
If you click on the word “posts” or “pages” under the header for each section on the lefthand menu, you’ll bring up a list of all of the entries in your main admin window. By hovering over the title of a post or page, you will get the options to “edit”, “quick edit”, “trash” or “view”.
Edit brings up the edit panel, which allows you to choose between the visual and html views. Quick edit brings up fewer options but can be helpful to amend the title or page order. Trash deletes the post/page, and View brings up the individual entry in your web browser.
When in the editor you will have two options.
The Visual Editor works much the same as a word processor. Above the formatting bar there are icons that will bring you to the media gallery uploader, where you can upload and insert photos, music or other media.
If you choose the HTML Editor you will see the same content, but in plain text. You will have the options to modify the generated HTML code or add your own.
Both pages and posts allow you to publish your content immediately to the web or save as a draft (meaning it’s not visible to anyone not logged into the admin panel). You can also make the content public, private, or viewable with a password. You can change the date the content was/will be published, and with posts, you can make one stickied so it shows at the top. You can also set a featured image which, depending on your theme, will display on your home page or elewhere. If your theme allows, you can also set custom fields. At the bottom of the screen you will also have an option to turn on or off comments, view current comments, and set the author of the content.
Over the edit window you will also have a space to put a title for your page/post, and once it’s been saved, you can edit the permalink if you perfer a different link.
Distinctions on the editing panel between posts and pages:
Posts:
You will get the opportunity to choose categories and tags for your posts. Categories are typically used for organization by allowing you to group your posts under similar topics. However, people use both categories and tags in many different ways, so how (or if) you utilize these options is up to you.
Pages:
Pages have ‘page attributes’. The Parent option allows you to set subpages for drop down menus. For example, this page (‘Pages & Posts’) is a child page of ‘Basics’. If your theme allows, you can also choose alternate templates (for example, a layout without a sidebar). Finally, the order allows you to insert a number that will order the page in relation to the other pages. By default all pages are at zero, but you can choose to make your ‘About’ page 100 and your ‘Contact’ page 800, with all of your other pages numbered in between those numbers.
Helpful hint: use larger numbers and then you can insert new pages without having to renumber all the others.