WordPress® 24-Hour Trainer, Second Edition

13

Image Options in Detail

When I showed you the procedure for uploading and inserting an image into a post, you briefly saw the options screen for the image, and I talked about some of the choices you could make. This lesson examines those options in detail.

TEXT THAT ACCOMPANIES IMAGES

WordPress makes it easy to add various types of text to your image — shown in Figure 13-1 — each of which serves a particular function.

Title

WordPress automatically gives images a title, using the name of the file minus its extension (.jpg, .gif, and so on). If this default title does not look exactly like the name of the file you uploaded, that's because WordPress cleans up names by stripping them of spaces, changing upper- to lowercase, and adding numbers if there's a file of that name already in the system.

You don't have to change this default title, but it makes a lot of sense because it's the wording that will show up when people mouse over the image. Also, some image gallery plugins will use this as a title. Besides, six months later when you're looking through the Media Library, you'll appreciate “Sailboat off Cape Cod” much more than “img000534.”

If it's able, WordPress automatically extracts some of the data embedded in digital images (aperture, shutter speed, and so on) and stores it in its database. If your image has an embedded title and caption, they'll be displayed in their respective ...