You need everything to create a WordPress page or website that looks great. Sure, the platform’s in-house page builder is always ready to assist you, but the problem is you can’t edit it as much as you’d like because of how bulky and out-of-the-place it is.
Thankfully, third-party web design plugins are there to address those woes you may often experience with WordPress’s own, and one of the most notable is Elementor. Elementor aims to aid you in creating websites in a uniquely easy way – and when we say it’s a breeze to work with, we do mean it. No coding required!
Do you think Elementor could be the right page builder for you? Or are you undecided? To answer your curiosities, we’re deeply diving into everything it offers.
Here’s a Pinky1472 video review for those who like a visual experience. You can still read our article to get an overview of Elementor.
Elementor in a Nutshell: What Is It About? WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Elementor is a website builder plugin designed for WordPress. It is best known for its intuitive and visual drag-and-drop editor. This allows you to create a variety of design assets and blocks, and then see how your page looks to visitors in real time.
With an interface that’s more akin to that of popular website builders like Squarespace and Wix, Elementor lets you either opt for a ready-made professional template or create a good-looking WordPress website from the ground up. This unique platform has one advantage: all the tools that you need to create a website are at your fingertips.
What Does It Have to Offer?
Living up to the reputation of being a very excellent WordPress plugin, Elementor provides a sleek and neat interface that lets you seamlessly go through everything it can offer.
- With Elementor, you’re greeted with an illustrious range of dynamic and attractive themes compared to the more standard and plain templates that often come with WordPress’ in-house themes.
- To edit your pages and posts, you have a completely separate interface that allows for interaction. There’s no single sign of bulkiness associated with WordPress’s similar editor – everything is built to be silky smooth on your end.
- You can keep your current theme, even if it’s from WordPress – Elementor can deal with all WordPress themes as long as they’re compatible with version 5.0 of the platform or higher. The plugin can be used to transform a dull theme into something more appealing.
- All the editing for your pages and sites is done from the front end. This means you’ll be able to see your work immediately as your visitors or customers see it. This remarkable feature allows you to better understand what design elements keep customers coming back for more.
Elementor, as a whole, makes it easy for anyone to use when it comes to creating an impressive page. The interface of Elementor is so simple and packed with useful tools, even people with more advanced knowledge in web design, can use it without any difficulty. This has made the website builder an excellent choice for those with limited resources or who work in a small team.
Many similar web designer plugins may offer working individuals a pleasing drag-and-drop experience and a handful of useful tools. Elementor’s standards are not met by all plugins. With that being said, Elementor has gained a positive reputation among many WordPress users – more than three million of them have had the plugin installed on their accounts.
What makes this interesting web design platform stand out from all the rest? What else does it have that others usually don’t? We’ll find out soon as we take a more in-depth look at what Elementor has in store for us, starting with its illustrious list of features.
Meet Elementor’s Features
Completely-packed Template Library
Elementor’s library of more than 150 templates is perfect for those who are new to web design, or have some knowledge but don’t have the time. All of them make the site-building experience easy on your end, as they help turn your ideas into a product that can catch anyone’s attention immediately.
Two categories are available for the platform’s templates:
- Pages – full-length templates that only require you to do low-effort customization
- Blocks – templates for individual and specific parts of a page – examples of which include FAQs, pricing tables, portfolios, etc.
If you wish to expand beyond Elementor’s in-house template selection, you may find them from tons of third-party sources all over the internet and import them onto the platform under the My Templates tab.
Huge Selection of Widgets
Elementor has a lot more than just a wide range of templates. The plugin is also rich in widget choices. Widgets can be smaller and more contained elements, which house a variety of content.
There are 60+ widgets that you can use to get a lot of information about how your website should look and the flexibility you have in doing so. Some of those include text-related elements such as headings and the inner section, media files like images and videos, buttons, icons, and website sidebars. Map widgets powered by Google Maps, testimonials, star ratings, and gallery widgets are also part of what Elementor has in store.
You may add as many as you want to your page. To expand your selection, you can also import templates from third-party sources.
Convenient Drag-and-drop Editing
If there’s one thing that Elementor is most prominent for, it has to be its highly convenient user experience. Elementor’s drag-and-drop functionality allows users to create and edit pages as easily as possible. Simply drag whatever widget you like best from the left sidebar, and drop it into your workspace. You can also adjust the layout of the page by moving it to another location.
Apart from that, Elementor offers right-click support to assist users without having to go over the sidebar for slight edits all the time – something a couple of WordPress web design plugins aren’t equipped with.
Included is a Navigation view section that gives you a comprehensive list of content arranged accordingly to Elementor’s page structure – we’ll discuss that later on in full detail.
The editing interface also includes a Finder tool that will help you navigate quickly between pages and content elements.
Fine-tuned Control Over Your Elements
Elementor, a simple WordPress page-building plugin is packed with design options that can be used by anyone. Elementor understands that every detail is important when creating a website that stands out. It allows you to modify and fix any design elements in the site you are building.
You can amend some necessary adjustments to your site’s content blocks, widgets, images, and text. You can also modify the font, size, and color of text content and headings.
These are just a few of the basic editing options you have in Elementor. You can also make specific adjustments to the plugin’s content elements. The plugin offers advanced customization options that include widget positioning within columns, custom CSS settings, animation effects and exact margins and padding for numbers.
Optional Features for Your Mobile-Friendly Page
Elementor templates are all mobile-friendly by default. However, you might be curious if you can make some adjustments to your template to suit your needs. You’ll be glad to know that the platform gives you full control to do whatever you want to make your website more appealing on smartphones and tablets, as with everything else.
Just click the Switch view icon along the sidebar, and you’ll be greeted with three viewing options, each for the desktop, tablet, and mobile phone. You can choose from any one of the three viewing options to edit or omit widgets.
An opportunity to look back at the changes you’ve made
Sometimes a few ‘undo’ actions may not be enough to fix a huge design mistake. You might have encountered similar occurrences if you tried editing on any design platform.
That’s where Elementor’s Revision History feature comes in handy. With it, you can revert to any of the previous versions of the page you’re editing without sacrificing the rest of your design elements.
Pricing
You can use the entire Elementor plugin for absolutely free. Elementor Pro, however, has more additions and upgrades that are miles ahead of the previous version, some of which may interest you in trying one.
Elementor Pro will allow you to explore a wider range of themes, templates and design blocks, as well as custom CSS and advanced programming capabilities. You can also create forms and pop-ups in the platform’s editing interface, integrate with WooCommerce, and use the theme builder.
Elementor Pro offers four subscription options, each tailored to different individuals or groups. It also includes a special website builder and hosting plan for next-level site management. All tiers can be paid annually and all share the same premium features. The only thing that sets them apart is the number of website activations, and the time it takes to respond to customer questions.
Elementor Pro Plans
- Essential Plan – $49/year, 1 pro website activation, 24/7 customer support
- Expert Plan – $199/year. 25 Pro Website Activations. 24/7 Customer Support
- Studio Plan – $299 in the first year, then $499/year after; 100 pro website activations, VIP customer support in under 30 minutes
- Agency Plan – $999/year, 1000 pro website activations, VIP customer support in under 30 minutes
Elementor Cloud Website Building + Hosting is $99 per year. You get all the features of an Elementor Pro plan, but with amazing hosting and CMS capabilities. You get a remarkable range of design assets, templates, and editing capacities, and your website is fully protected with Google Cloud Platform integration, SSL, and robust website management.
Elementor Free vs. Elementor Pro
The tricky part is: Do you feel the free WordPress plugin version is still appropriate for you, or do the Pro versions have such an advantage that you want to give it a try instead?
The free plugin version is a good option if you don’t want to add any extra features to your website or landing page. Elementor Free is already feature-rich in retrospect – its series of core tools are as dynamic as other web design platforms where their premium plans bring the same level of delivery. It is so dynamic that business teams can use the free version. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Elementor Free allows you to:
- Create optimized mobile-friendly versions of your site and page
- Go through your website’s version history
- You can use fully customizable themes and pre-made templates.
- Add or edit out website blocks however you need them.
If the ability to build and license more than one website is what you’re looking for, Elementor Pro may be a more logical option. It offers a lot more value than the free version. What we mean by it is you have more options to explore and more features to give you the extra edge. These include:
- A growing list of more than 300 themes and over 100+ premium block templates.
- Global widgets that allow you to use and edit the same widget across multiple pages without having to edit it individually;
- A front-end form builder and a pop-up editor if you want more ways to attract potential customers;
- Integrations with WooCommerce are available, with templates blocks and widgets to help you create an online storefront.
- The ability to create your personalized theme from scratch through its Theme Builder feature. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
However, unless you wish to license multiple websites, Elementor Pro shouldn’t be viewed as the only way to expand the WordPress plugin. Elementor Free, as mentioned above, is sustainable enough for most users. However, there are many flexible themes and templates that can be integrated into Elementor. Astra is a notable example.
Using Elementor: How Does It Work?
To get the Elementor plugin to start, the first thing you will need to do is install and activate it in WordPress. Once you’ve installed it, there’s a settings panel that you can visit if you wish – you may opt to modify whatever you want to see while you do the editing. You can also go to WordPress’s pages section.
From there, you will notice the Edit with Elementor button placed conveniently along the bar above the canvas. As soon as you click on the button, you will be redirected to builder interface. The image below perfectly illustrates what it looks like. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Based on the image, here are some things you should know as you explore this interface.
- The workroom or canvas. It’s a huge part of the interface that takes up most of the screen.
- The widgets area. Situated on the left side next to the canvas, it contains lots of content and design elements that are ready to use.
- Settings. Symbolized by three small horizontal lines, it is where you get to access a wide range of colors, fonts, and other design assets.
- The Open Elementor widgets button. It is essentially a menu button that allows you to return the widgets list. Nine little squares are used to represent this.
- The Global Settings button. It is represented by the cogwheel icon and takes you to the more advanced settings.
- The Revision History button. It is displayed as a clock icon and allows you to view the history of pages or websites in your past versions.
- Switch View. You can convert your desktop page to tablet-friendly or mobile-friendly versions by clicking the small monitor icon. You may use this to edit what you want your customers to see through their phones.
- Preview your changes. Click the small eye icon to see all the changes to your page.
- The Publish/Update button. Once this shaped button goes green, that’s when you’re ready to publish. If it’s grey, it means your page is updating – this time, unlike when it’s green, you can’t click it. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Structure Hierarchy
Before you can begin building, it is important to understand the structure hierarchy Elementor uses. If you’re especially new to website design, this similar framework has been abided by many experienced creators and other basic web design platforms.
In Elementor, your primary goal is to create a page. A page is a collection of sections and columns.
On the one hand, a section is a row that you can customize with plenty of design elements, such as background, colors, sizing, and more.
The columns, on the other, go inside a certain section. These are the places where widgets and content elements are located. Each can be styled and sized individually.
This is Elementor’s hierarchy structure.
Page > Section > Column > Widget/Content element
Designing a Page
Now that we know how the skeletal outline works, let’s go ahead and create a page. On WordPress’s page design interface, click the Edit with Elementor button. Soon you’ll see a plus (+), highlighted in red violet. Click on it to add a section. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Next, you will need to choose the structure for your section. You may choose a single column or multiple, depending on what type of content you wish to add. From there, you may populate those columns with content elements. Simply drag any widget from the interface’s widget area and drop it onto them, be it a heading or an image. You can even adjust or rearrange them and sections and columns within the page.
Once you’re happy with the structural placement, now is the time to retune the finer details to make the page look more presentable. There are three main editing tabs to explore: Content, Style, and Advanced.
Designing a pre-existing or pre-made themed page is much easier than doing so from scratch. Most of the time, you would only need to make slight adjustments in between sections, columns, or even widgets – unless you need to add a new design element. With Elementor’s drag-and-drop functions, refining some necessary changes has been made much easier than the more advanced processes done through coding.
The disadvantages: What else is missing?
Don’t get us wrong – based on what we’ve shown you so far, Elementor is surely poised to be among the very best WordPress web design plugins out there. However, nothing in this world is always perfect. While there are many things that we love about it, there are a few that some of you may find inconvenient:
- Sometimes the editing interface can be a little slow. Although it’s fast, efficient, and ultimately very convenient, it can freeze too quickly. To get it working again, refresh it and reopen it.
- Though most of Elementor’s features are offered for free, there are a few that may appear essential but are only limited to Elementor Pro, which may be a bit discouraging for some. You can’t set sitewide styles with the free version. Instead, you are limited to only a few pages at a time. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
- Some editing refinements may not go exactly as you wish them to. You may find that the default font and typography of certain links is what you have chosen, even if you add your own styling. On the other, you may have difficulty locating the exact margin value whenever the alignment of your design elements is off.
Who should use elementor?
Elementor has a wealth of expert-level features and tools. The free version includes these, as well as additional useful upgrades for any Elementor Pro plan. Furthermore, most users will likely find it easier to grasp than other WordPress web design plugins.
It’s easy to see why so many people love Elementor. Elementor is both a popular DIY tool for those who don’t have the necessary web design skills and an intuitive platform that can be used by a broad range of businesses.
However, there are some specific users we have in mind that will find Elementor to be a more suited choice. These are:
- Casual internet users. Elementor offers many customizable benefits that are especially useful for bloggers and website owners.
- Digital marketing professionals. Elementor features can be used for design purposes, but they are also marketing-ready. This includes seamless integrations with thousands of platforms via Zapier and pop-up and online commerce widgets.
- Site builders. Elementor is an excellent stepping stone for those who are interested in creating websites for clients. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Alternatives to Elementor
Just because Elementor has advantages that may far exceed other contemporary web design plugins doesn’t mean you should consider it as the only choice worth considering.
Many WordPress web design plugins offer similar functionality to Elementor. Some may only offer a few. We all know by now that WordPress’s in-house web design feature is not everyone’s cup of tea – that’s why the plugins were created in the first place, to make the experience much better by the mile.
Right now, there are two other leading WordPress web builder plugins out there that are on the same par as Elementor in terms of features: the Divi builder by Elegant Themes and Beaver Builder. Divi, one on hand, offers the same feature-rich range as Elementor and has the same ability to edit your website from a front-end interface as your clients see it. Although it has a similar look, there is no free option. Beaver Builder is a more straightforward plugin than the others, but it packs as many design tools as you need into one platform. These are already enough to create an attractive website.
Other noteworthy web design plugin alternatives to Elementor include SeedProd and the SiteOrigin Page Builder.
Final Verdict: Is Elementor worth trying?
Answering the question is yes. Elementor is a premium drag-and-drop page building tool for WordPress. It’s packed with top-quality design tools and features. Most of these core features are offered free. WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
There’s no question as to why people keep coming back to this impressive plugin to create pages and websites. We believe that Elementor stands out from most web design plugins because it allows individuals of all skill levels to build whatever they wish with no major obstacles in the way. Unlike others, it doesn’t force you to upgrade to a higher plan or a paid license, ensuring there’s enough space for everyone.
Here’s some advice before we let you explore Elementor for yourself: if your job involves running multiple websites and creating them for clients, we recommend you try Elementor Pro. The free plugin for WordPress will still work fine.
FAQ WordPress Pdf Viewer Elementor
Can I export or upload my templates to Elementor
Yes, you can import your templates to Elementor. You can create a new template using the Theme Builder. Additionally, you can import your personal themes to the website builder via the Templates tab.
Similar to the previous function, you can export your template files to be used on another WordPress site – useful if you work as a web-builder for multiple clients.
What types of pages can I create using Elementor?
With Elementor, you can create homepages, landing pages, landing pages, about pages, or any mixed-interest pages under the sun.
Elementor Pro subscribers can create websites, and even online shops.
Does Elementor slow down my website?
Elementor will not slow down your website so that it takes as little time as possible to load. A website built with this plugin might take two seconds longer than one built from WordPress’s built in website builder. Both are still faster than the Beaver Builder version.
WordPress websites made with plugins can take longer to build due to multiple factors, including poor hosting, large media files and slow themes.