Title: Previous posts
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Previous posts

 *  [jaggs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jaggs/)
 * (@jaggs)
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/)
 * How can i put a previous posts button at the bottom of my main page please? The
   wiki and other documentation are not much help to newbies I’m afraid.
    Also how
   can I change the size of the Posted by, comments and link to text at the bottom
   of each post? My CSS only seems to affect Posted by.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

 *  Anonymous
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97282)
 * In the admin panel in Options –> Reading: select – posts paged,
    and add to your
   template (index.php) the posts_nav_link (see [Wiki](http://wiki.wordpress.org/posts_nav_link)
   in The Loop.
 *  Anonymous
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97342)
 * Hmm…I can’t find any posts paged in the Options – Reading. All I’ve got are Front
   Page and Syndication Options. The point is Beel that I have searched, a lot, 
   and none of it makes any sense.
    To all of you PHP experts this stuff must seem
   really easy, to those of us coming from the ‘cut and paste’ school of HTML and
   CSS coding, there doesn’t seem to be any logic behind it. I’m sure there is, 
   but it’s just very hard to find. Sorry to appear so dense!!! :=| What it would
   be really nice to find is a clear cut set of instructions which say – ‘find this
   bit’, copy this bit into it and switch on this bit here’. At the moment if you
   look up Previous Posts in the search and you get a cryptic command with absolutely
   no instructions at all in the Wiki. I’m sorry to sound so whiny, but you folks
   really ought to try and document this stuff better if you’re ever going to gain
   friends en masse. /complaint.
 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97344)
 * Posts paged must be set:
    `<div class="storycontent"> <?php the_content(); ?>
   </div> </div> <?php endforeach; else: ?> <?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your
   criteria.'); ?> <?php endif; ?> <?php posts_nav_link('::','&laquo;Newer', 'Older&
   raquo;'); ?> </div> <div id="menu"> Add the nav link line. And CSS ? [http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/graphicalcss/](http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/graphicalcss/)
   There is lots there. And docs ? They do exist in many places. Oh, and I know 
   no php. None. Zero.
 *  Anonymous
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97347)
 * Thanks Podz, I’ve tried inserting the nav link line into my index.php just below
   the ‘no posts matched your criteria’, but nothing’s appearing. I’m clearly not
   getting understanding something fundamental about PHP and it’s frustrating the
   biscuits out of me! 🙂
    Thanks for the CSS link btw, looks very promising! 🙂
 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97349)
 * Which version of wp are you using ?
    The code above is straight from a 1.2 install
   that I have, and it is set to show 1 post-paged in Options.
 *  [moshu](https://wordpress.org/support/users/moshu/)
 * (@moshu)
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97352)
 * Oops, I was the Anon suggesting Options–> Reading –> posts paged. And as I stated
   several times in this forum I am not able to write ONE single code in PHP, either.
   Don’t worry about that! Knowing HTML and CSS is fully enough for making your 
   site as you’d like 🙂
 *  [Beel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/beel/)
 * (@beel)
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97358)
 * juggs, it is not a PHP issue. IF you inserted the code as podz indicated it still
   will not work until you find the “Show the most recent X posts_paged” option.
   It is a dropdown menu in the Admin Reading section of 1.2 – You have 3 options
   there: “days” “posts” or “posts paged” Good news is that as of 1.3 “posts paged”
   will finally, and rightly, be irrelevant.
 *  Thread Starter [jaggs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jaggs/)
 * (@jaggs)
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97416)
 * Thanks for that, I’ve now found the posts paged option and switched it on. But
   on the page I’m now getting
    separatorNext although the Next is a live link which
   does as required.
 *  Anonymous
 * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97419)
 * > And docs ? They do exist in many places.
 * May I respectfully suggest that docs in _one_ place might be easier for noobs
   to find and use?
 *  Thread Starter [jaggs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jaggs/)
 * (@jaggs)
 * [21 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97454)
 * 🙂 Well success. Thanks for everyone’s patience. One final point if I may, I 
   agree with anonymous above that the WordPress site and support would be infinitely
   better if the documentation could be better organised and laid out. Lots of newbies
   like myself are doubtless running away from WP in desperation without trying 
   these excellent forums.
    One example. I was told very kindly early on to go to‘
   Options –> Reading: select – posts paged’, and spent a while hunting for it. 
   In fact the actual suggestion should have been to go to Options – Reading and
   under Front Page select Posts Paged from Show Most Recent. It may seem a trivial
   matter of semantics, but IMHO it’s this kind of well meaning but vague stuff 
   that causes confusion which would be instantly clarified by better documentation
   or wiki entries. I know it’s easy to say and hard to do, but that’s just my two
   pence worth. But thanks anyway to my patient helpers. Now on to the next challenge!
   🙂
 *  [Beel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/beel/)
 * (@beel)
 * [21 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97455)
 * Part of the problem is WP is very vibrant and the changes of course affect the
   support documents. In 1.3 it would have been under Options|Reading but like I
   said previously, it is no longer an option.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

The topic ‘Previous posts’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Everything else WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/miscellaneous/)
 * 11 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: [Beel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/beel/)
 * Last activity: [21 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/previous-posts-1/#post-97455)
 * Status: not resolved

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