Putting HTML in a post–and a Paypal trick

By Amy • July 14th, 2008

It is relatively easy to put HTML into a post using the "Source" button on the editor. (Of course the editor in my hosted blogs include the souped-up FCKeditor that I install as a standard ’must have’ plugin). If you don’t have this plug-in, the simple editor that comes with Wordpress will have a ‘Plain Text’ option that you can work in.

This trick is especially useful for blog add-ins that don’t have a ‘widget’ specifically for Wordpress. Most better blog add-ins have an ‘other’ option that includes HTML code for your site. **Exceptions** at this time, you cannot drop the Paypal HTML directly into Wordpress, but you can still put a button in using my workaround here.

Since Wordpress works with a ‘visual editor’ it won’t take code and read it as such. To drop the code in a post or a page, you must switch your editor to a ’plain text’ or ’source’ view.

Follow these directions:

Create your post (or page) and put all the information in it (except the code). You automatically are working in the visual editor.
When you are done creating the post, click on the "Source" button (circled above) and your entire post will be converted to plain text, including HTML tags… it makes it tricky to navigate
Move your curser down to the end (or where you are placing your code) and ‘paste’ the HTML code
Click "Save"
After you "Save," the post will go back to visual editor and you *might* not be able to see the form or code at all until you publish (or click "Preview this Post" above).

Paypal ‘Workaround’ -

Take the image of a Paypal button from the Paypal site (right click and ’save as’ to your desktop)
Import the image into your post to where you want it.
Hyperlink it with the Paypal code for ‘Emails". To get this code, create your Paypal button online and instead of creating the button, choose "No" at encrypting the button and then choose "More Options" and when you get to the next page and click ‘Create Button’, you will be given the HTML Code for websites (that you can’t use in Wordpress) AND you will also get the code for linking an email.
Cut the ‘email link’ code from Paypal and hyperlink the button you imported in Step 2