Videos are easily embedded into WordPress 2.5 – 2.7. These methods call upon the tools built into WordPress from versions 2.5 onwards. The WordPress site has full instructions which may be more or less useful.

1. Externally hosted video method 1 – YouTube, etc – this method does not embed but provides a link

Find the embed code for the video. On YouTube I often click the little cog so that I can remove the related videos link (just in case … and select a nice purple colour).Then I click on the embed code in the box and copy the code (cntrl-c on the PC / Apple key-c on the Mac).

Go back to your WordPress post edit box and select the Add media / video box at the top of the post edit box (wave your cursor over the icons to find out what each one does). Your screen will dim and a groovey black overlay take its place.

Paste your embed code into the box for Video URL. Add a title.

Example: Sophie Can Walk

2. Externally hosted video method 2 – YouTube, etc – this method embeds a full You Tube video into your post

Find the  URL (website address) and copy the code (Cntrl-C on the PC / Apple key-c on the Mac).

Go back to your WordPress post edit box and make sure that you are in the Visual Editor (the one with the icons). Make sure you are in “kitchen sink” mode (two rows of icons) – if not click on the button at end of the row of icons (or click on Alt-Shift-Z). Select the little picture of a film reel in the second row of icons (funny how a picture of analog film represents the embedding of digital video).

An old fashioned insert box comes up on top of your post. Select the video type (YouTube videos are flash files files) and paste the URL of the video into the box labelled File/URL. Then click into the first dimensions box – the dimensions will be automatically recognised. Click insert.

If you want to have a bit more finer control you can look at the advanced options. In this case I have aligned the YouTube video to the right hand side of the page.

3. Embedding your own video – so that it shows and plays like a YouTube video

Firstly you need to upload the video to a server. If you are using your own server you can use the upload media file dialog box mentioned in the first section of this page. Alternatively upload the video to another server (using an FTP programme like FileZilla.

Upload the file but do not insert into the post. Instead click on the Media Library and find your video. Click on show and copy the URL address of your video (Cntrl-C on the PC / Apple key-c on the Mac).

Cancel this option and go back to your WordPress post edit box and make sure that you are in the Visual Editor (the one with the icons). Make sure you are in “kitchen sink” mode (two rows of icons) – if not click on the button at end of the row of icons (or click on Alt-Shift-Z). Select the little picture of a film reel in the second row of icons (funny how a picture of analog film represents the embedding of digital video).

An old fashioned insert box comes up on top of your post. Select the video type (Movie Maker files Windows Media and Apple iMovie will be Quicktime) and paste the URL of the video into the box labelled File/URL. Then click into the first dimensions box – the dimensions may need to be inserted – this one is set at 350 x 285. Click insert.

There are one or two gotchas to be aware of if you host your own videos

1. You might not have the space – video files take up a lot of space
2. Your server configuration might need to be adapted to allow you to upload large files. Mine won’t let me upload videos bigger than 2MB so I need to make some changes to my php.ini file. I will be making a change to allow 8MB videos but I could go further if I wished.