User Manual

Last Update: July 4, 2024

Creating a website by writing HTML code, integrating CSS styles, and debugging a website’s backend are daunting tasks even for experienced professionals. WordPress and Elementor work together to make coding a thing of the past, enabling anyone to quickly create a professional website

In this guide, we’ll take a look at what WordPress and Elementor are and how they work together to save you time developing sleek professional websites.

Let’s first take a look at WordPress.

What is WordPress?

Here we see a WordPress dashboard with the Elementor plugin installed.
WP Admin with the Elementor plugin installed.

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that simplifies the process of creating blogging websites. 

At it’s core, it’s a user-friendly way to create the database underpinning your website without any need to know SQLthe standard database language In addition to being designed for non-programmers, WordPress is an open-source platform; meaning it’s free to use. This open source approach led to the growth of a large and thriving global WordPress community in which members create themes and plugins to help others build their websites, and extend WordPress’s capabilites. 

Elementor is one such plugin that has found popularity within the community thanks to its powerful editing and site building tools – tools which make building professional WordPress sites even more efficient and intuitive.  

Did you know? WordPress powers ~43% of all websites on the internet!

WordPress.org

WordPress.org provides you with the software to create your own website. It can be referred to as self-hosted WordPress because you are responsible for hosting or, in most cases, finding a third-party, to host your site. So while the software is free, you will most likely have to pay for someone to host your site. There are a few other limitations:

  • No drag and drop editing capabilities
  • You are responsible for backing up and maintaining your site
  • You are responsible for the security of your site

Where does Elementor fit in?

Elementor is a popular WordPress website and webpage builder plugin that brings its own tools to the WordPress world. Perhaps the easiest way to look at it is that WordPress provides a building’s framework, while it’s Elementor that lets you build the beautiful mansion resting on this infrastructure. 

One of the key tools allowing you to build your “mansion” is the Elementor Editor. This visual drag and drop editor allows web creators to seamlessly build webpages capable of sophisticated, dynamic functionality. 

By using the editor to drag and drop widgets onto your page, you can save time creating your masterpiece. It means working more intuitively, with no need to code in order to create a professional website.

The Elementor Editor is a visual drag and drop editor for WordPress websites.
With the Elementor Editor, users drag and drop widgets onto the canvas to create a page.

While the Elementor Editor allows you to build beautiful web pages, the Theme Builder allows you to put these pages together to create an entire website. Using the Theme Builder you create headers and footers for your pages, templates allowing you to create uniform pages and posts and even a creative, fun 404 page designed just for your site.

Elementor's Theme Builder allows users to create a WordPress website quickly and efficiently.
The Theme Builder transformed Elementor from a webpage editor to a site builder.

Not only that, if you don’t have the time, or inclination to design your own site, Elementor comes with a kit library filled with ready-to-use sites that you just need to add your own content to.   

Along with the free version of Elementor, there’s Elementor Pro, which is designed to give you more advanced professional features. These powerful tools include drag and drop ecommerce tools, embedded forms, and customizable features. 

If you’ve had to code your own websites you know these features can take days to implement and test successfully. With Elementor and Elementor Pro, drag and drop means hours not days to complete a project. It also means you’re not worrying about how your code is working or how it might break.   

The bottom line

WordPress was built, and does a great job of, holding the content of a website. Elementor was created with design in mind, making the process of building attractive, sophisticated, professional websites faster and more efficient. Drag and drop editing, the Theme Builder, the Kit Library, all combine to make Elementor a popular plugin to use on any WordPress website project. Elementor is a visual editor that keeps your workflow lean while providing you with a professional website when you’re done! 

Whether you’re building your site from scratch or using one of our website kits, you’ll need to learn how to use the Elementor Editor. We’ll start by going over the basic layout of the editor.  

Elementor Editor layout

The Editor consists of three main areas: the top bar, the panel, and the canvas.

2 labelled screen Explore the Elementor Editor 1

Top Bar

This is where you’ll find the tools and settings you need to build and customize your page. For more details about the options available from the top bar, see, Elementor Top Bar.

Panel

The panel is where you’ll find the design elements, such as containers, and widgets, such as the Heading widget, used to build your page. For more details about moving elements from the panel to the canvas, see Add elements to a page

The panel is also where you adjust the settings for elements, pages and the site. 

Canvas

The canvas is also known as the Content Area. This is where you’ll create your page/post/site part.

If you want to increase canvas width, click the Hide Panel arrow to add more space.

Hide panel button Explore the Elementor Editor 3

There are different views you can use when working on pages. For more details about these different views, see Change canvas views.

If the page header and footer appear on your canvas, their color changes when you hover over them. 

Click inside either the header or footer, to switch from editing the page to editing that site part. 

Click the page area to return to editing that page. You are  prompted to save before switching.

Header and Footer highlighted Explore the Elementor Editor 5
A canvas with the Header and Footer highlighted.

Creating a container

  1. On the canvas, click the + icon.
    Clikc the Plus icon Explore the Elementor Editor 7

    You can now select a container layout.
    Add container Explore the Elementor Editor 9

  2. Choose the first container layout. This will create one container with a vertical layout.
    Clikc the top bar plus icon Explore the Elementor Editor 11
  3. On the top bar, click the plus icon.
    5 Drag Heading widget Explore the Elementor Editor 13
  4. From the panel, drag the Heading widget to the new containers.
    Enter my first container to heading Explore the Elementor Editor 15
  5. In the panel, in the title field, add the text; My first container.

Edit containers and widgets

To edit a container:
Clikc the container tab Explore the Elementor Editor 17

  • Click the settings icon Settings icon Explore the Elementor Editor 19  in the container tab.
    Three tabs layout Style Advanced Explore the Elementor Editor 21

The container settings menu opens in the panel with three tabs: LayoutStyle and Advanced.

To edit a widget:
Clikc widget handle Explore the Elementor Editor 23

  • Click the widget handle.
    Three tabs Content Style Advanced Explore the Elementor Editor 25

The widget settings menu opens in the panel with three tabs: ContentStyle and Advanced.

Many Elementor Widgets offer the ability to edit text color and typography settings. These design options are located in the widgets’ Style tab.

Style

Text Color: Choose the color of your text

Under the Widget Setting > Style, click the icon pencil icon to access the typography settings.

Typography

  1. Family – Choose your font family
  2. Size – Choose a size for your font (learn more about px, em, etc.)
  3. Weight – Choose the weight of the font
  4. Transform – Choose the Transform properties for the font
  5. Style – Choose between Normal, Italic, and Oblique
  6. Decoration – Choose the text Decoration
  7. Line-Height – Use the slider to set your line-height
  8. Letter Spacing – Use the slider to set your letter spacing
 
1 Use containers to build your first page 1

Now that you know how to create a new page, we’ll show you how to build your first page in Elementor using flexbox containers. Containers replace the previous system of sections and columns, providing an easier and more flexible way to build a web page.

Before starting, you should familiarize yourself with the layout of the Elementor Editor if you haven’t already.

You may also want to familiarize yourself with the concept of containers

Let’s start building

Now it’s time to get your hands “dirty” – so we’ll start by building what’s called a “Hero section”.  Hero sections are big prominent elements, usually found at the top of the page. They’re designed to attract visitors and keep them on your site.

We’ll be building a hero section based on one that can be found in our template library, available for all Elementor Pro and Cloud users. 

A good hero section starts with a great image, video or slideshow. In this case we’ll start with a photo. If you want to follow along, you can click the image below and save it to your desktop, for use as the background image. 

Creating the hero section

First thing we’ll need to do is create a container to hold your hero section.

  1. Click the HN0Hu26WrZjIK oVTfxej6GSVjAD4kflJvjY1Vu rQdjB2oG6RchENB AUE30R34qrLMsm 4xIuS7Rb4f6MUldzq8AY7HoqOQ3WYMHvA5YuGMAX9LUItJiSK66k2Zn2bZIthC Use containers to build your first page 3 icon to create a layout for your container. (Clicking the folder icon would start the process of importing a template, but we’re going to build this section from scratch).
  2. Now we need to select a container structure. For now, we’ll keep it simple and use one container – however, we still need to choose if the container will have a row or column structure. In our case, the elements are going to be arranged vertically, so we’ll choose the column layout. 
    2 Use containers to build your first page 5
    Okay, now it’s time to shine. Let’s add the image to your Hero section. There are several ways to add an image to a container but, in this case, we’ll add the image as a background This way we’ll make sure the image fills up the entire container. 
    When you created the new container, The panel on the left side of the screen should have turned into an Edit Section panel. 
    If it didn’t, click the dot icon in the blue tab above the container. 
    3 Use containers to build your first page 7
  3. We want our hero section to take up the entire screen, so we’ll keep the content width set to Boxed with a Width of 1140 PX and a Min. Height of 540PX. (Learn more about the different measuring units). 
    4 Use containers to build your first page 9
  4. The text in our Hero section is in the middle of the screen, so let’s set Justify Content and Align Items to Center.
    5 Use containers to build your first page 11
    Now it’s time to add the background image. For containers, the background image can be found in the Style tab. 
    Learn more about all the options available to you with flexbox containers.
  5. Select the Style tab and choose the Classic background type.
    6 Use containers to build your first page 13
    Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to add an image by clicking the image icon.
    This will open your media library. In WordPress, best practice is to add media through the media library so that’s what we’ll do. 
  6. To add the image you downloaded to your media library click Upload Files and then Select Files.
    7 Use containers to build your first page 15
  7. Navigate to the file you selected and click Open. This will add the image to your media library. Although it’s optional, best practice is to add Alt Text and a caption. This will help your SEO and make your site more accessible. Then click Insert Media.
    8 Use containers to build your first page 17
    Probably doesn’t look too heroic yet does it? Let’s fix that.
  8. We’ll change the following options:
    1. Position of the background image: Center-Center
    2. Attachment: Scroll
    3. Repeat: No-repeat
    4. Size: Cover
       Now one big image will cover the entire section.
      9 Use containers to build your first page 19
       

Let’s add the text to our hero section.
In this case, we are using two different styles of text so we’ll use two Heading widgets.

  1.  Click the widget icon so that you can select a widget. 
    10 Use containers to build your first page 21
  2. Drag and drop a Heading widget into the container.
    11 Use containers to build your first page 23
  3. In the Content tab, enter “Total Body Fitness” into the Title box.
  4. Change the Alignment to Center.
    13 Use containers to build your first page 25

Now, we need to style the heading.

  1. Click the Style tab.
  2. Change the Text Color of the text to #F8F812 (Learn more about picking colors).
  3. Change the Typography to:
    1. Family: Montserrat 
    2. Size: 22PX
    3. Weight: 400
    4. Transform: Normal
    5. Style: Normal
    6. Decoration: None
    7. Line Height: 26PX
      (Learn more about typography)
      13 1 Use containers to build your first page 27

Learn more about all these options for the Heading widget.

To add the second headline:

  1. Drag a Heading widget under the first widget.
  2. In the Content tab change the text to “CHALLENGE YOURSELF.<BR>TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL and the Alignment to center. (The <br> in the text indicates a line break.)
    14 1 Use containers to build your first page 29
  3. Go to the Style tab.
  4. Change the Text Color of the text to #FFFFFF.
  5. Change the Typography to:
    1. Family: Archivo 
    2. Size: 65PX
    3. Weight: 800
    4. Transform: Uppercase
    5. Style: Normal
    6. Decoration: None
    7. Line Height: 1EM
15 Use containers to build your first page 31

Finally, we’ll add a button that will quickly convert interested visitors into customers by taking them straight to a registration page. To do this:

  1. Drag a Button widget under the second header.
  2. In the Content tab change the Text to “see pricing>”
  3. Change the Alignment to Center. 
  4. Go to the Style tab.
  5. Change the Typography to:
    1. Family: Archivo
    2. Size: 18PX
    3. Weight: 800
    4. Transform: Uppercase
    5. Style: Normal
    6. Decoration: None
    7. Line Height: 1EM
  6. Change the Text Color to #1B252F.
  7. Change the background color to #F8F812.
  8. In the Padding section, click the lock icon to unlink the values.
  9. Change the values to:
    1. Top: 20
    2. Right: 55
    3. Bottom: 20
    4. Left: 55

(Learn more about padding and margins)

16 Use containers to build your first page 33

Your container should now look like the one at the top of the page. If it doesn’t, look at what’s different and try to figure out which values you may have skipped or entered incorrectly.  

Click Publish to save your page.

17 Use containers to build your first page 35

Add the widget

heading widget icon Heading widget 1

What is the Heading widget?

Headings or titles are one of the most essential elements of any website. The Heading widget allows you to insert and customize page headings without using any code.

Common use case

Sarah is building a website for a bakery. At the top of the homepage, they added a prominent heading with the text Baking With Love and selected the <h1> HTML tag for SEO benefits. They then customized the typography to make the title stand out, using a warm, inviting font style that aligns with the bakery’s brand identity.

use case elementor heading widget

Additional use cases 

  • Blog post titles and subtitles.
  • Create testimonial headings.
  • Interactive Call-to-Action (CTA) titles.

Add a Heading widget: Step-by-step

  1. Add the heading widget to the canvas. For details, see Add elements to a page.
    add the heading widget
  2. In the Content tab, under Title, add the main text for your heading.
    add heading link
  3. Enter the URL in the Link field to make your heading clickable and direct visitors to a specific webpage.
    heading tag
  4. Use the HTML Tag field to define the type of HTML tag for your heading. Choices include H1 to H6, Div, Span, or Paragraph.
    In the Style tab Choose alignment Heading widget 7
  5. In the Style tab, the Alignment field allows you to choose where your heading appears on the page. Options available are left-aligned, right-aligned, centered, or justified.
    Use typography to set the font size and type Heading widget 9
  6. Use the Typography field to configure the size and font type.

Add the widget

text editor icon Text Editor widget 1

What is the Text Editor widget?

The Text Editor widget is a versatile tool that allows you to add and customize text content on your website. It uses the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor, which is similar to the classic WordPress visual editor. You can add headings, paragraphs, lists, and even include images and videos seamlessly.

In addition to the features that generally appear on the TinyMCE editor, this widget also gives you more styling options that let you change settings like font weight, line height, letter spacing, alignment, and more.

Common use case

Andrew is building a website for a company that offers custom business solutions. They wanted to create a standout About Us section reflecting the vision and aspirations. To achieve this, Andrew uses the text editor’s features to highlight important content. They make text bold and italic and arrange them in a way that grabs attention.

Andrew also uses bullet points in the text editor to keep the content neat and clear. This allows them to showcase the company’s achievements and areas of expertise.

text editor example Text Editor widget 3

Additional use cases 

  • Enhance product pages using the text editor to write detailed and enticing product descriptions. Include bullet points, emphasize key features, and add images for a comprehensive presentation.
  • Showcase your work effectively using the text editor to create project descriptions in your portfolio. Use formatting options to emphasize your role, skills utilized, and project outcomes.
  • Create informative resource pages using the text editor. You can structure and format the information easily, whether it’s a list of helpful links, downloadable files, or educational content.
  • Customize error pages (404 pages) with the text editor to guide users back to your site. Add a friendly message and navigation links, turning potential frustration into a positive experience.

Add a Text Editor widget: Step-by-step

  1. Add the text editor widget to the canvas. For details, see Add elements to a page.
  2. In the Content tab, under the Text Editor section, type or paste your text. You can format your text using the options provided, similar to a basic word processor.
    add Text Editor widget 5
  3. (Optional) Slide on the Drop Cap option to set the first letter of the text bigger and styled independently from the rest of the text content.
    drop cap Text Editor widget 7
  4. In the Columns field, select the number of columns to split the text into.
    columns 3 Text Editor widget 9

  5. In the Column Gap field, use the slider to adjust the space between columns.
    columns gap 1 Text Editor widget 11

Access to the elementor academy can be found here. For in more advnaced and indepth tutorials.