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WordPress.com introduced the Gallery feature back in April 2008. However, a full Gallery-specific WordPress.com Support document appeared only in September 2009. My Not-the-Official-WordPress.com Gallery FAQ was an early attempt to bridge the information gap and is still being updated over various changes and upgrades to image handling and the Gallery feature on the WordPress.com site.
A Small but Important Disclaimer: Since their introduction, the Gallery feature and image handling behavior on WordPress.com have been a continual “work-in-progress” and things may go pear-shaped without warning. The Gallery behavior on WordPress.com blogs as described below is correct as of this Post’s latest update (April 15, 2010) and was tested both pre- and post-publishing on my WordPress.com blogs. Updates will be listed here, as well as current problems which will be removed when solved.
UPDATE-November 9, 2011: WordPress.com implements the Photo Carousel, which displays your Gallery images in a lightbox style image viewer. This is now the default behavior for all images displayed via the Gallery shortcode, including all existing Galleries. More info can be found on Gallery: A Demo Blog.
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What is a Gallery?
A Gallery is a thumbnail set of images that appears in your blog Post or Page. Clicking on any thumbnail image will open the Carousel viewer with a permalink to either the original image or an image in a separate Attachment page. See above update.
How do I insert a Gallery in my Post or Page?
You must be in the Editor with your Post or Page open where you want to insert the thumbnails. Click on the “Add an Image” button and select and upload your Gallery images from your computer via the Image Uploader. After your images have finished uploading, click “Save all changes” and your images will appear in a separate Gallery tab in the Image Uploader. (Hat tip to Panos.)
To edit the Title (text which appears when your mouse hovers over the thumbnail and as the Attachment page header), Caption (“alt text” for your image and appears below your thumbnail) and Description (text which appears under the photo on the Attachment page) for all of your images, click on the “All Tabs Show” link at the top of the Gallery tab. You can also edit this information for each individual image by clicking on “Show” next to the image. Save your changes.
At the bottom of the Gallery tab, below your images, you can adjust your Gallery’s settings:
- Link thumbnails to: Image File or an Attachment page.
- Order Images By: Menu Order, Title, Date/Time or Random.
- Order: Ascending or Descending
- Gallery Columns: 2 or more (Please note that changing the number of columns does not change the size of the thumbnail. More info about columns/thumbnail size further down.)
Once you’ve made your selections, then click on the “Insert Gallery” button. The Image Uploader will close.
After all that work, what you next see in your Post or Page might surprise you. In the Visual Editor you will see a graphic placeholder , in the HTML Editor you will see the WordPress shortcode [ gallery ] instead of lines and lines of code. Save your Post or Page and then click “Preview” in the Editor to see what your post will look like once published.
A Winter Day in Akko:
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- New Harbor
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- The Old Harbor
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- Seagulls
(Because of the change in how the Gallery behaves, it is no longer possible to simply click on any of the above images to read the text on the image’s Attachment page. In order to do so, please RIGHT-CLICK on any thumbnail and open the link in a new tab or window to view the Attachment page linked to the Gallery thumbnail and to read more about Attachment pages.)
How many images can I have in my Gallery?
I’m assuming the only limitation is the amount of storage space you have available, so optimizing your images before uploading is important not only because of space and viewer considerations (there are still places in the world where dial up connection is the norm) but also to preserve image quality.
The Gallery doesn’t display the thumbnails in the order I want. How do I rearrange them?
In the Post or Page Visual Editor, click on the Gallery placeholder. You will see two small buttons appear in the upper left corner of the placeholder, clicking on the left button will bring you to the Gallery tab in the Image Uploader where you can change thumbnail order under the Gallery Settings.
There are two other ways to rearrange your thumbnails: first, you can simply drag and drop them in the order you want. You’ll see numbers appear in the “Order” boxes. The second way is to enter a number directly in the Order box.
In both cases, make sure you save your changes and then “Update Gallery Settings”.
Can I add or delete images in my existing Gallery?
To add an image, have the Post or Page where the Gallery appears open in the Editor, click on the “Add an Image” button and upload your additional image in the Image Uploader. The new image will also appear in the Gallery tab. If necessary, reorder your thumbnails as described above. If you want to add an image to your Gallery from your Media Library, you must first attach it to the Post or Page where the Gallery appears. Instructions for attaching Unattached Files can be found in the WordPress.com Support docs.
To delete an image from the Gallery, open the Image Uploader Gallery tab, click on “Show” and then click on the “Delete” link that appears beneath the Description box. You’ll be asked again if you want to delete the image. Click “Continue”. The image is deleted not only from the Gallery, but also from your Media Library.
In all cases, remember to click “Save All Changes” and “Update Gallery Settings”.
Note: with the March 2, 2010 update to the Gallery, it is possible to exclude an uploaded image from appearing in a Gallery without deleting it by modifying the Gallery shortcode in the HTML Editor. See the bottom of this WordPress.com Support Doc. An example might be [ gallery columns="2" size="medium" exclude="235, 158" ]
The Gallery thumbnails on my blog show two in the first row followed by one in the next row or the thumbnails overlap. What’s wrong?
By default, the Gallery shows 3 thumbnails per row. If the Theme you are using is particularly narrow, this knocks the thumbnails out of alignment and you see the behavior described above. In order to change the number of thumbnails displayed per row, you will need to open the Image Uploader in the Post or Page Editor, switch to the Gallery tab and modify the Gallery settings. Another way is to switch to the HTML Editor window and directly modify the shortcode to [ gallery columns="2" ] or if your theme is very wide and you want to display more thumbnails per row [ gallery columns="4" ] (without the spaces after and before the brackets).
Can my thumbnail images be bigger?
There are two ways to do this: You can change the default size of thumbnails on your blog via your Dashboard’s >>Settings >>Media>>Thumbnail Size. Changing this setting changes the thumbnail size globally on your entire blog, not just in a single Gallery.
The second way to do this affects only the individual Gallery in your Post or Page and currently can be done only in the HTML Editor window. Modify the Gallery shortcode to [ gallery size="medium" ] or [ gallery size="full" ] (without the extra spaces after and before the brackets). If you do opt for larger thumbnail images, you may also have to decrease the number of thumbnail columns per row to accommodate the larger size. A combined change to the Gallery shortcode may look something like [ gallery columns="2" size="medium" ] (without the spaces after and before the brackets).
Tip: for those who want to display their Gallery images at the maximum displayed width for their theme, in the HTML Editor edit the Gallery shortcode to [ gallery columns= "1" size= "full" ]. This is a quick and easy way to insert multiple images in the same post without having to insert them one-by-one. If you don’t want your images to link to Gallery’s default Attachment page, add ‘link=”file”‘ to your shortcode.
Is it possible to edit the images in my Gallery?
WordPress.com has recently added some advanced image-display features which allow you to edit the display properties of your individual images in the WordPress.com Post Editor. However, because your Gallery images are being displayed via the Gallery shortcode, you do not have the option of editing images that appear in a Gallery this way.
Update: WordPress.com has now added the ability to edit your images directly in the Media Library.
Can I edit the Attachment page that opens after clicking on a thumbnail?
Attachment pages themselves cannot be edited as a regular Page. If you click on the “Edit Post” button or “Edit This” link that appears on the Attachment page, you will be taken to your Media Library where you can change the image’s Title, Caption and Description, as well as performing some basic image editing functions (see just above).
A note about Attachment pages, Categories and Commenting: At this time the Gallery Attachment page is assigned to your blog’s default posting category; it does not inherit the Category of the Post where the Gallery appears nor can you assign it a different category. Update: With the v3 update here on WordPress.com, Attachment Pages may or may not display a Category depending on theme.
It is possible to leave a comment directly on an Attachment page. Commenting cannot be turned off for the Attachment page without turning it off for your entire blog and then enabling comments for each individual Post or Page. If you disable commenting only on the Post or Page where the Gallery appears, commenting is still available on Attachment pages. Any comment left on an Attachment page will show up as a comment in your blog Dashboard, but not in the comment count on the Post where the Gallery appears.
How can I display an image in the same Post or Page without it being a part of the Gallery?
Any image you upload in the same Post or Page where your Gallery appears will automatically be included in that Gallery. Inserting an image which was uploaded via “Media>Add New” in the Dashboard is not attached to a specific Post or Page and will become attached to the Post or Page where your Gallery appears. This causes the image to be displayed twice, once in the Gallery and again indivdually.
Update: With the March 2nd update and the ability to exclude photos from the Gallery by ID number, you can now insert a photo uploaded to the same Post or Page where a Gallery was uploaded by first excluding the photo from the Gallery by ID number, as described above, and then inserting the photo in your Post or Page from the Editor’s Upload/Insert Image button>> Image Uploader Media Library tab.
Single image posting on a Post with a Gallery
Can I have more than one Gallery in my Post? *
Galleries are tied to individual Posts or Pages. In order to have more than one Gallery per Post or Page, you need to create a new Post and upload the images you want there. Save the Post, go to your Dashboard’s Manage>>Posts and then hold your mouse over the title of the Post where you inserted the additional Gallery. (Update: you can also find this information via your Media Library.) In your browser’s status bar, you will see the link to edit your Post, which ends in a number. That is the ID number for the Post where the additional Gallery appears and what needs to be inserted in the Gallery shortcode via the HTML Editor. For example, the Gallery just below is coming from a past Post and also demonstrates displaying medium thumbnail size. The shortcode looks like [ gallery id="119" size="medium" ] (without the spaces after and before the brackets).
*This technique is still experimental.
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- 1800′s House
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- Olive Grove
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- Living Area
My current theme, Inuit Types, is narrower than the theme I used previously (The Journalist v1.3) and therefore the medium-size thumbnail images above now overlap. I have purposely left it this way.
During my testing it became apparent that the additional Gallery must appear in a published Post, otherwise when viewers click on a thumbnail, they get a “Page not found” error. There are also some inherent navigation problems involved. My workaround was to insert a link in the past Post where the additional Gallery was uploaded to the Post where it is displayed. You can see this at work by clicking on one of the above thumbnails.
A note about editing the additional Gallery: you can only edit the additional Gallery from the Post or Page where it was actually uploaded. Quite a lot of work to display an additional Gallery in the same Post or Page.
Update: An excellent method of creating multiple Galleries within the same post by using the “include” option with image ID number has been posted at the Bryce Corkins Design blog. The method works on blogs hosted on WordPress.com as well. (hat-tip to TLS Landscapes for posting this in the forums.)
Can I have a Page that displays all my existing Galleries?
To make a separate “Gallery” Page, make a new Page and then locate the Post ID number of the Galleries you wish to include in your Gallery Page (see above). In the HTML Editor, type in the gallery shortcode, together with the relevant Post ID. It will look something like this [ gallery id="210" ] (without the extra spaces after and before the bracket). You can also adjust the settings for number of columns and thumbnail size for each individual gallery displayed on that Page. An example can be seen in “The Galleries“.
Tip: You can also include photos that aren’t necessarily displayed in a Gallery. Just include the Post ID number as described above. Example here.
This FAQ is released under a Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial/No Derivative Works 3.0 License and is not a part of WordPress.com’s official FAQs or Support docs.
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→Update April 11, 2011: Following on the popularity of my Gallery FAQ, I’ve set up an entire demo blog to illustrate some of the possibilities when using the Gallery shortcode and to test how new WordPress.com themes treat images and Gallery posts.
•Introducing: Gallery-A Demo Blog
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Jennifer
8 November 2010
Thank you to everyone who has commented on this post during the past 2 years and 4 months. I hope you found an answer to your question on how to work with this feature.
If you are a WordPress.com blogger and still have questions about using the Gallery feature on your blog, please check out the answers in the Support forums on WordPress.com. If you start a new thread, please tag it with “gallery”. I’ll do my best to keep an eye out for them.
Cheers!