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Getting Started with Author Pro

Ready to start customizing your site with Author Pro? Follow this guide to learn how to use each of Author Pro's features on your site.

If you need help installing Author Pro, please follow this tutorial first: How to Install Author Pro.

Table of Contents

Introduction

This guide will teach you how to use each of the new features added with Author Pro. The tutorials are newbie-friendly, so every step is explained in detail.

It's recommended that you follow along with your site as you read.

Custom Colors

Author Pro adds color controls for virtually every element on the site. This includes colors for specific elements, like widget titles and menu links, and hover effects for buttons, social icons, and more.

The color controls are grouped into sections. Each section covers one area of the site, such as the Primary Menu or the Footer.

Changing these colors will allow you to match your site to your brand's colors (or simply pick a color you like).

Follow this tutorial to learn how to change your colors with Author Pro:

Tutorial: How to Change Your Colors

Background Images

Author Pro adds an option to change the background of your site to an image. You can change the background of the sidebar or body area to any image you'd like.

To learn how to add a background image to your site, follow this tutorial:

Tutorial: How to Add a Background Image

Background Textures

The Background textures feature lets you add a texture background to the sidebar or body. It's great for adding depth and interest to the look of your site.

Author Pro comes bundled with 39 textures.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to add a texture to the background of your site:

Tutorial: How to Add a Background Texture

Featured Sliders

Featured Sliders can be used to replace Featured Images with sliders, like this:

Author Pro integrates with the Meta Slider plugin to add Featured Sliders. Like with Featured Images, every Post and Page can have a different Featured Slider.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to add Featured Sliders to your site:

Tutorial: How to Add Featured Sliders

Featured Videos

Just like Featured Sliders replace Featured Images, Featured Videos can be used to add videos in place of Featured Images.

This gives you a simple and beautiful way to publish videos on your site.

Author Pro will responsively embed videos from any of the following sites:

  • Youtube
  • Vimeo
  • Dailymotion
  • Animoto
  • Funny or Die
  • Hulu
  • TED
  • WordPress.tv
  • Blip
  • Vine

All you need is the URL of the video to embed it. While not video sites, you can also embed SlideShare presentations and SoundCloud tracks with Featured Videos.

Tutorial: How to Add Featured Videos

Flexible Header Image

The header image is a large image displayed at the top of your site, spanning from one side of the screen to the other.

It's great for displaying a welcome message on just the homepage, or an interesting graphic across the site.

Learn how to add a header image to your site with this tutorial:

Tutorial: How to Add a Header Image

Use New Fonts

Author uses the Rokkitt font for headings, and the Lato font for everything else. With Author Pro, you have a selection of 728 fonts for your headings and the rest of your site.

With the increased selection, you can choose the font that perfectly complements your content.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to apply new fonts to your site:

Tutorial: How to Use Your New Fonts

Post/Page Background Images

We already covered the Background Image feature which lets you change the background of the site to an image. Author Pro also lets you specify a different background image for individual Posts and Pages

This is a great way to customize the site to fit the message of your Post.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to use Page-specific background images:

Tutorial: How to Add Page-Specific Backgrounds

Display Controls

Author Pro allows you to hide any of the default elements on the site.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to show or hide elements on your site:

Tutorial: How to Show/Hide Site Elements

New Widget Areas

If you followed along with the Author Getting Started guide, you'll remember that the sidebar is a "widgetized" area. In other words, it's a part of the site where you can add any type of content you want by adding widgets.

Author Pro adds four new widget areas to your site:

  • Before Main Content
  • After Post Content
  • After Page Content
  • After Main Content

Each widget area can display any widgets you'd like (or none). If you want to learn how to add widgets to one of these new widget areas, check out the tutorial below:

Tutorial: How to Use Your New Widget Areas

By default, the footer text in Author reads, "Author WordPress Theme by Compete Themes", and links to our site.

With Author Pro, you can easily replace this text with whatever you want it to say.

To learn how to replace the footer text, follow this tutorial:

Tutorial: How to Change the Footer Text

Conclusion

If there's anything else you want to change about your site that wasn't covered, check for an article about it in the sidebar to the left. Otherwise, there's probably a free plugin available for it on wordpress.org .

Check out our WordPress Resources page to find awesome plugins and tools we recommend, and if you want to try using CSS to customize Author Pro, we've got some pre-written snippets for you to get started with in the Author CSS Snippets Collection.

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