How to Get Started with Featured Images in WordPress (Quick Guide)

Almost all WordPress themes allow the featured image. However, it is a popular feature. In rare cases, you might come across a theme that does not support featured images. Or that you dislike how they manage featured images.

You can add featured image capabilities to your theme or customize its appearance.

You can do it yourself if you’re familiar with modifying WordPress theme files. And understand your way around a little custom CSS.

You won’t see the option to add a featured image in the content editor if your theme does not allow featured images.

To support featured images in a WordPress theme, add the following line of code to the functions.php file:

add_theme_support (‘post thumbnails’);

This code will allow featured image functionality for pages and posts. You can now access the featured image option by heading to the posts or page block editor.

When you set a featured image, it will not show in your WordPress theme. To display featured images in your theme, edit your templates. You include the following code for how you want the featured image to show up:

<?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>

The files into which you put the following code may vary depending on your theme. You need to add the code within your post loop.

The code above is the basic function to add featured image capability. And it displays featured images in your theme.

To set the image size for featured images you upload, include this line of code in your functions.php file.

set_post_thumbnail_size( 150, 150);

The set post thumbnail size variables are as follows: width and height.

You may also specify other image sizes to use with the post thumbnail () function. As an example:

// Image size for single posts

add_image_size (‘single-post-thumbnail’, 760, 250 );

In the above example, we’ve added and defined a new image size, which is a single-post-thumbnail. That has a width of 760px and a height of 250px.

We’ll still need to add this image size to the relevant theme file to use it in our theme.

If you’ve posted featured images in the past, but they’re still showing up in a different size. You now need to update thumbnails and image sizes for older posts.

An example of the featured image function with defined image size is as below.

<?php the_post_thumbnail( ‘single-post-thumbnail’ ); ?>

It is a simplified version of the complete functionality. There are still many other uses for featured images.