PublishPress Checklists Now Has a Free Version on WordPress.org
Do you care about creating great content with WordPress? Now there's a plugin that allows you to ensure all your content meets your high standards.
We've released a free version of the PublishPress Checklists plugin. You can get the free version on WordPress.org.
PublishPress Checklists is the best way to make sure that your content is ready to go live. This plugin enables you to choose pre-publishing requirements for your content. For example, you can require that all posts have a minimum number of words, or that they all have a featured image.

This plugin was previously available only in a Pro version called “Content Checklist”.
Next week, we're going to release a standalone Pro version. This means that you will no longer need to install other plugins to use it.
What is PublishPress Checklists?
Using PublishPress Checklists, you can define tasks that must be complete before content is published.
For example, you can make sure your posts have a minimum or maximum number of words. Or you can ensure that all your posts have a featured image. Or you can force authors to use a specific number of Tags or Categories.
This image below shows a Checklist inside a WordPress post:

PublishPress Checklists also supports the pre-publish panel in Gutenberg. So if you click “Publish”, you will see the requirements before you publish:

Inside the Checklists > Settings menu link, you can choose your requirements. Here are the default requirements.
- Check that the Excerpt has text
- Require a maximum or minimum number of categories
- Require a maximum or minimum number of tags
- Require a maximum or minimum number of words
- Require a featured image

Every task has 4 different options:
- Disabled
- Recommended: show only in the sidebar
- Recommended: show in the sidebar and before publishing
- Required
If you choose the “Required” option, it will be impossible to publish without completing the task.

It's possible to create new items for the checklists by clicking the “Add custom item” link. For example, you can require authors to get a green Yoast sign, or force them to run a spell-check before publishing.
Also, I'll note that you can create different checklists for different post types. So your checklist for Posts can look very different from your checklist for Pages.