How to Create a Glossary in WordPress
The Glossary plugin allows you to create a glossary on your WordPress site. This can be very useful feature for your visitors, particularly if you work in an industry with lots of jargon or unusual words.
The Glossary plugin allows you to automatically create links from words to the corresponding term page in the glossary. So if you define the word “server” in your glossary, this plugin can automatically link any occurrences to the glossary definition.
Step #1. Install the Glossary Plugin
- In your WordPress site, click Plugins > Add new.
- Search for “Glossary”.
- Click Install now.
- Click Activate.
Step #2. Glossary Configuration
After activating the plugin, you will land on the configuration page.
- Enable the Glossary settings for Posts.
- I would recommend leaving the other defaults until you have more experience with the plugin.
Next you can choose the permalinks and frontend display for your glossary:
- Leave the default Glossary terms and Category slugs.
- If you don't want the Glossary to be visible in it's own area of the site, click Disable Archive in the frontend for Glossary categories.
The next three options are only available with the PRO version of the module. One useful feature allows you to only link the first occurrence of a term on each page.
To finish the configuration, enable the following options:
- External link.
- Force Glossary terms to be included within WordPress search results.
- Prevent term link to appear in the same term page.
- Open external link in a new window.
The External link option will create a CSS class. This will add an icon to the link if it leads to an external site.
Glossary allows you to configure the tooltips for each term:
- Enable tooltips on terms – Link and Tooltip.
- Leave the default tooltip style – Classic.
- Enable images on tooltips.
- Limit the excerpt by words.
- Set the limit of words to 25.
- Click Save.
The Classic tooltip style is required if you want to add an image to the tooltip. If that is not the case, you can choose another style.
Step #3. Create the Glossary terms
- Click Add New Glossary Term.
- Add a title and a definition.
- Create a Category and associate the glossary term with it.
- Click Set featured image and upload an image to the site.
You can insert additional key terms or related terms for this definition. I’m going to insert two more terms. For example, if your term is “website”, you might include “site” and “blog” as related terms.
- Scroll up and click Publish.
Step #4. Write a Post
- Click Posts > Add new.
- Write a title and some text.
Make sure you include the terms you created in Step #2 inside your text.
- Click Publish twice.
- Click View post.
Every occurrence of the main term or its key terms will be highlighted. The definition and image will be shown when hovering over them.
Congrats – your glossary is now live on your site. This is a nice and easy way to give your visitors more information about terms that may be confusing for them.