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How to Add Captions to Featured Images in WordPress

Do you need to add captions to your featured images in WordPress?

Captions are a great way to add context and background information to your images. However, many WordPress themes don’t display captions for a post’s featured image.

In this article, we will show you how to display captions for your featured images in WordPress.

How to add captions to featured images in WordPress

Why Add Captions to Featured Images in WordPress?

Almost all WordPress themes come with built-in support for featured images and show them across many different areas of your WordPress website.

Adding a featured image to your post can make it look more appealing, which will often get you more clicks and engagement. To learn more, check our guide on how to add featured images or post thumbnails in WordPress.

When you upload a featured image, you have the option to add a caption, along with other information, such as the image alt text.

Adding captions to a featured image in WordPress

However, your theme may not show this caption to visitors.

With that being said, let’s see how you can add captions to featured images in WordPress using a plugin.

Adding Captions to Featured Images in WordPress

The best way to show featured image captions is by using FSM Custom Featured Image Caption. First, you will need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to go to the Settings » FSM Custom Featured Image Caption page to configure the plugin.

Adding featured image captions to a WordPress theme

The default settings should work well for most websites.

However, if you want to show featured image captions on the front page of your WordPress blog, then you will need to check the ‘Show image captions in lists’ box.

Showing featured image captions

For this guide, we will leave the ‘Default Class’ option selected. However, if you would like to style the caption using your own custom CSS, then you should select either ‘Custom Class’ or ‘Custom Style’.

When you are happy with the settings, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.

You’re finished! Now, if you visit your WordPress website, you will see the featured image captions in action.

An example of a featured image caption

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add captions to your featured images in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to choose the best web design software or check out our expert picks for the best drag and drop WordPress page builders.

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27 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Hello,
    I tried to get the featured image by calling the specific post ID and get_post function but everything is okay except featured image. It does not show featured image.

    is there problem to call by post ID and get_post(); ?

    my code?

    // custome template (community)


    post_title; ?>

    post_content; ?>

    Please any idea?

  2. Thank you for explaining this! I just needed to add the image captions and spent a lot of time searching for a solution…..I found a lot of other answers on the WP support forum, but none of them explained how featured images are stored……such a simple thing now that I understand.

  3. Hello, great post.
    Please explain if I can do that in other website.
    I d like to show article or category from wordpress blog on opencart website.
    Thank you

  4. Sry, I don´t rly get it…
    In which loop exactly do i have to paste the code?

    Maybe it´s just me being brain-afk, sry for that.

  5. Thanks a lot, I have been looking for this and this is the best and simple explanation of how to add the image caption for featured images.

    Thanks

  6. Short neat and to the point. Only critic goes for not providing example output for the short article. For other readers: Remember to read the related posts!

  7. How can I style the caption?
    It is rendering the caption line outside of the DIV class in the source code? What am I doing wrong.

    Thanks in advance,
    Gary

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