What is a short code?

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I am new to WordPress and I’ve seen this term passed around.

3 Answers
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“Shortcode” is a user friendly way of inserting various WordPress plugins/scripts into a page without having to know a lot of fancy HTML/JavaScript/PHP in order to make it happen.

Take, for example, embedding an mp3 file into a post on a hosted WordPress site. Instead of having to setup the proper code for a flash player or fiddle with some fancy JavaScript, you can use the following shortcode in the editor. You don’t even switch to HTML mode…

[audio: http://www.pathtomyaudio.com/song.mp3]

…and WordPress does the rest for you.

You’ll find a lot of plugins for WordPress (such as Contact Form 7 and others) use this convention.

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