One of the tedious parts of developing a brand new WordPress site is making posts and pages to determine if the layout is working properly. This is especially true when it’s a magazine style layout based on categories filling the different sections. Some posts might be image based, some might be videos and others plain text.
Sometimes the client already has the content but frequently the content will come after the design.
Here are three different ways to add “dummy” content to a new WordPress site.
The manual method
Many times I’ve made the posts and pages manually, added images and whatnot and then used the lorem ipsum generator for fake content. It’s tedious but can be done quickly if your focus. And since I’m a morning person it’s one of those tasks I will save for the afternoon when my brain isn’t quite so sharp.
Two mock content plugins
- WP Dummy Content – This plugin will auto-generate posts, pages and sub-pages based on your specifications. For example, you can tell it to make 3 posts in the Featured category dated one week apart. I did find, however, that there had to be a post in a category for the category to be available in the selection dropdown. Before doing that the only choice was uncategorized because the default Hello World post is in that category. You can also specifiy the type and length of content. Another great feature is that all dummy content can be deleted by the plugin with just one click. This plugin says it’s compatible up to version 2.8.3 of WordPress but it worked great for me in version 3.0
- Demo Data Creator – This plugin creates more data than WP Dummy Content and also works with BuddyPress and WPMU. Data that can be created includes; users, categories, posts, pages and links. The text content is generated from lorem ipsum. I don’t know if this plugin has a delete all like the other one as I have not personally tested it.
How do you add content to a site in development?
photo credit: slimmer_jimmer
WP Dummy Content. Does it take a post, swap the words about and ten publish it as a new post?
I’ve never really understood how these types of tools and plugins work, do they make sense whe nthey rearrange the words?
.-= Dean Saliba´s last blog ..Sunday Ramblings 3 =-.
Hi Dean – It seems to have some core data that it makes posts out of. I didn’t have anything in a post when I used it and it made ones up.
Thanks for this..It’s very useful specially when testing a new theme,…
.-= Harsh Agrawal´s last blog ..Hostgator Maximum Discount and 1 month Free Hosting- August 2010 =-.
Hi Harsh – It makes things easier.
Another awesome find, these could come in quite handy with my new blogs.
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..The ABSOLUTE Final Posting =-.
Hi Dennis – Great! I hope it helps.
I am a little confused on why people would want to use dummy content and not real content?
.-= Sarah-Miss Virtual Reality´s last blog ..Ask Miss Virtual Reality-How To Speed Up Your Computer =-.
Hi Sarah – When you are developing a new site there is a good chance that you don’t have any content yet. The dummy content is used to make sure the layout and everything is working properly.
Never done it, but this could be useful for a couple of my clients. Thanks!
.-= vered´s last blog ..My Reasons for Going Gray =-.
Hi Vered – I hope they find it useful.
Thanks for this! Two great resources I will be trying out. Just to let you know, the Demo Data one has a screenshot at the WP Plugin Directory and right at the bottom it shows a “delete all” button.
Hi Jen – Thanks! I didn’t see the screenshot and that is really good to know.
I had no idea there was a cheaters way for creating dummy content. In the apst I have simply used a set of posts I have saved on my desktop until I’m happy with a layout. Thanks for this post, I can finally stop looking at the ten articles on tea everytime I put a new blog together.
Hi Dana :-) I’m a little tired of looking at lorem ipsum so this fake content is a nice change.
Hi Kim,
Sorry, I don’t like fake, I want to write articles and posts I’m can stand for and have controled that everything is correct. Maybe because I’m a real estate agent and we must always control and stand for what we say or write.
Hi Marbella – This is for when you are designing a brand new site. Often the template has been created but there isn’t any content for it yet. The fake content is to test what the layout looks like when there is content in it. Once the client has content the “fake” content is removed.
Hi Kim,
Sorry, correct. I must stop reading blogs in the middle of night after hard working day, the brain was not on to 100%.
Hi Marbella – Oh good – I was afraid the post didn’t make sense.
I often answer comments way too early in the morning and make really odd mistakes too. :-)
I have always done this manually but the WP Dummy Content Plugin looks really cool. Thanks so much for the suggestion…It will make it so much easier when developing my theme preview pages.
.-= Aj´s last blog ..Thesis Theme Review =-.
Hi Aj – I used to make them manually too and I’m finding the plugin makes this a lot easier and it looks better than Lorem Ipsum content.
Thanks!
Thanks for this article, I have successfully used that plugin and successfully generated Dummy Content on my blog.
thanks for the article…i just used it and i was successfull in making dummy content on my new blog…thanks alot …!!