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This is a re-post from the Webcomics.com archive. If you’ve ever been curious about the kind of information, tutorials and advice that you’ll get as part of your subscription to Webcomics.com, this is a good example.

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Comic Easel has added a handy shortcode to help you place your comic into a page or blog post — and it will be already linked to that comic’s page in your archive.

Here’s a quick tutorial…

Shortcodes are WordPress shortcuts. There’s really no magic to using them. You place the shortcode directly into the text of your blog, and — voila — the code does the rest. Don’t be alarmed, however — this isn’t a right-before-your-eyes thing. It will still look like code in the text. But when you hit Publish, it will appear.

The shortcode is [[randcomic]] That, alone will place a random comic from your archive into the text of the blog or page — already linked to the comic’s page in your archive. Better still, there are modifiers you can apply inside the shortcode:

• character=character-slug
• chapter=chapter-slug
• slug=post-name-slug (so it’s not random and it pulls up exact comic from the post name)
• size=thumbnail/large/full

Character

[[randcomic character=diablo]]

This shortcode would output any comic the Diablo character is tagged in.

Chapter

[[randcomic chapter=the-big-nothing]]

This shortcode would output any comic in the chapter the-big-nothing.

Size

[[randcomic size=large]]

This shortcode would output any comic as a full-sized image. If I had chosen “thumbnail,” it would have, of course, displayed a thumbnail.

Mix-and-Match

[[randcomic character=diablo chapter=the-big-nothing]]

This shortcode would output any comic the Diablo character is tagged in — and only in the chapter the-big-nothing.

[[randcomic character=diablo chapter=the-big-nothing size=large]]

This shortcode would output any comic the Diablo character is tagged in — and only in the chapter the-big-nothing. And the image would be large.

Slug

To me, the real power of this shortcode is the ability to place a specific comic from your archive. For example, let’s say I wanted to place the this comic from my archive:

The slug of the post is “jungle-adventure”. So this shortcode will place the appropriate comic into the post:

[[randcomic slug=jungle-adventure]]

The next step is to simply add it into my post. I can do this in Visual mode.

Simple as that. When I publish the post, it will pull the correct image and follow any modifiers I’ve applied. Let’s do a quick example, I’ll use that shortcode and I’ll use one with a modifier…