A Post Format is meta information that can be used within a Theme to style or customise the presentation of a Post. The Post Formats feature provides a standardised list of formats that are available to all themes that support the feature. There is no requirement for Themes to support every format on the list and new formats cannot be introduced by themes or even plugins. If your Theme supports Post Formats you can choose how each Post looks by selecting a Post Format from a list of radio buttons, similar to the following screen. If your Theme doesn’t support Post Formats then the Format panel won’t be displayed.
While the actual post content entry will not change, the theme can use the selected Format to display the post differently. How content is displayed is entirely up to the Theme, but the following list of available Post Formats provides some general WordPress guidelines as to how they might be styled.
- Aside – Typically styled without a title. Similar to a Facebook note update
- Audio – An audio file, such as a Podcast
- Chat – A chat transcript
- Gallery – A gallery of images. Post will likely contain a gallery shortcode and will have image attachments
- Image – A single image
- Link – A link to another site
- Quote – A quotation, most likely contained within a blockquote
- Status – A short status update, similar to a Twitter status update
- Video – A single video