{"id":4236,"date":"2017-11-08T22:23:10","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T22:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/2017\/11\/08\/the-is-preview-function\/"},"modified":"2023-06-09T13:21:12","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T17:21:12","slug":"the-is-preview-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/the-is-preview-function\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use the is_preview() Function"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, we will introduce the WordPress is_preview() function<\/strong>. This is how you can effectively edit what content is generated when you preview a page or post. Most commonly, this can be used to differentiate the preview page from published pages. This is especially helpful if you are using something like Google analytics to track pageviews.<\/p>\n

The is_preview() function is a conditional tag. So, using the example above, if you don\u2019t want to track pageviews for preview pages, this is the function you will want to use.<\/p>\n

How to use the is_preview() function<\/h2>\n

If you are using a theme designed by someone else, it would be best to make this modification in a child theme<\/a>. However, if you are using a custom theme, you\u2019re ready to get started.<\/p>\n

The directory we will be working with is the theme directory for your theme. This will be slightly different depending on your theme, but the location is always the same: \/wp-content\/themes\/name-of-theme<\/em>. In this case, \u201cname-of-theme\u201d is substituted for the name of the theme you\u2019re working with.<\/p>\n

Also, we will be using the cPanel File Manager to edit our theme files.<\/p>\n

In this example, we are going to instruct WordPress to only include our analytics code on pages that are not<\/em> preview pages.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \"cPanel<\/a>Log into cPanel<\/a>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \"File<\/a>Under Files<\/em> choose File Manager<\/b>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \"Themes<\/a>Navigate to the theme directory listed above\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  4. \"Click<\/a>Create a file (by clicking the +File<\/b> button) to contain your analytics code; for this example, we can name it analytics-code.txt<\/em>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  5. \"analytics<\/a>Paste your analytics code into the \u201canalytics-code.txt\u201d file\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  6. \"blue<\/a>Click Save Changes<\/b>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  7. \"gray<\/a>Click Close<\/b>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  8. \"find<\/a>Now open the header.php<\/code> file by highlighting it and clicking the Edit<\/b> button or using a right-click and choosing Edit<\/b> (depending on your theme, the header.php<\/em> file may be in a \u201ctemplate parts\u201d directory\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  9. \"add<\/a>Add the following code just beneath the <head><\/code> section:\n
    <?php if ( ! is_preview() ) { \ninclude \"analytics-code.txt\"; \n} ?><\/pre>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    You may notice the exclamation point placed before the is_preview()<\/em> function in the code snippet above. This means, if the page is not<\/em> a preview page then insert our analytics code. This means all pages and posts will include the analytics code necessary for tracking purposes.<\/p>\n
    Well done! You now know how to use the is_preview() function<\/strong> in a conditional statement to modify your preview page in WordPress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    In this article, we will introduce the WordPress is_preview() function. This is how you can effectively edit what content is generated when you preview a page or post. Most commonly, this can be used to differentiate the preview page from published pages. This is especially helpful if you are using something like Google analytics to Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wordpress"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Use the is_preview() Function | InMotion Hosting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Worried that you are picking up pageviews from preview pages? In this article, we introduce the WordPress is_preview() function & how to use it to avoid that.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/the-is-preview-function\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Use the is_preview() Function | InMotion Hosting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Worried that you are picking up pageviews from preview pages? 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