Setka Editor Review: A Unique WordPress Post Builder

Want to create more beautiful WordPress content? That’s a pretty easy question to answer, right?

We have plenty of awesome page builders for heavy-duty page building. But what about a lightweight tool for beautifying regular ‘ole post content? That is, what about a “page builder for posts”? That’s how Setka Editor, the plugin I’m reviewing today, is branded.

Setka Editor is neat new content building tool that helps you quickly create stylish content with a different approach than your average page builder.

It’s pretty cool, and in my Setka Editor review, I’ll show you exactly how it works and what it can do.

Setka Editor Review: What Does It Do?

At a high level, you’ll notice a good deal of conceptual overlap between Setka Editor and a page builder. But while they share the core principle of helping you create more stylish content without needing to know how to code, the two have slightly different emphases.

Page builders are more about helping you create stylish “pages”. That is, you build your homepage with a page builder, even though you may not use it for individual blog posts (though you can, of course). On the other hand, Setka Editor is more about helping you create stylish “content”. But you probably don’t want to use it for your homepage (though you technically could).

But if you want to make your content look like it came out of a magazine? That’s more what Setka Editor is for.

So…same core concept as a page builder, but with enough of a different approach and emphasis that Setka Editor is fairly unique.

So What Are the Actual Features of Setka Editor?

Setka Editor sits inside the normal WordPress Editor interface. It gives you a new tab – so the WordPress Editor goes Visual, Text, Setka Editor.

When you activate it, you get a WYSIWYG editor interface that allows you to build more stylish content than the regular WordPress Editor allows. In addition to some advanced elements that you can drag onto the page, Setka Editor is built on two core functions:

• Grid System
• Setka Styles

If you’re a web designer, you’re probably already familiar with grids. If you’re not, grids basically divide your page into a number of equal “columns”. Then, for each part of your content, you can decide how many “grids” it takes up. It allows you to easily align your content wherever you’d like it to show up.

Long story short…grids are awesome – which is why frameworks like Bootstrap rely on grids for easy positioning.

As for Setka Styles, these are basically pre-defined style sheets for your content. Because you can have multiple Setka Styles, you can change up how your content looks for each individual post. Depending on whether you have the free or pro version, you’ll be able to either:

• Create your own unique styles (pro)
• Choose from Setka Editor’s pre-defined styles (free)
• Both (pro)

Rather than trying to explain these concepts in more detail, let’s just dig into the hands-on section so you can see how everything works.

Hands-on With Setka Editor

In addition to the Setka Editor inside your WordPress Editor, you can also define your own styles and grid systems at Setka’s website (which then automatically sync up with the Editor inside your WordPress dashboard).

Before you can do that, you need to link Setka Editor up via a License Key. That’s pretty much the only thing you need to configure. In the other Settings tab, all you do is choose which post types and user roles have access to Setka Editor.

Using Setka Editor to Build a Post

Alright, I’ve got Setka Editor installed and activated on my test site. Here’s how that looks inside the WordPress Editor:

Clicking on the Setka Editor tab launches it right inside your dashboard. The first thing you need to do is select your Style and Grid System:

I went with one of the pre-defined styles called Wellness as well as a 6-column grid.

Now, to start adding text content, all you need to do is type like you would in the regular editor:

Now, let’s say you want to make that second paragraph right-aligned and have it only take up half the page. To do that, you need to hit the Add Grid button and the grid selector will pop up.

Then, you can use the + and – buttons to determine how many grid columns your selected element occupies:

And you can also add specific styling or animation for your paragraph via the bar at the top. Similarly, you can also use this bar to style specific columns, grids, or your entire post:

Adding Non-Text Items to Your Setka Editor Designs

Ok, so that covers adding and manipulating text. But what about images and other elements? For that, you need the sidebar on the right:

In addition to adding grids, you can also use these buttons to add:

• Snippets – pre-defined elements. Think of them sort of like modules or elements in a page builder (though you need to build them yourself via HTML if you’re not using one of Setka Editor’s pre-defined styles)
• Images – upload them as needed.
• Icons – choose from a variety of icons, including in-line icons
• Embed codes – for custom HTML
• Image galleries – self-explanatory!

For example, here’s my test post after adding an image, snippet, and some icons. As well as using the grid to move these elements around.

Easy-peasy!

Previewing What Your Content Will Look Like

One neat thing about Setka Editor is that it offers easy previews. Instead of needing to hit the WordPress preview button, you can just tap your Tab key to instantly see how your page will look on both desktop and mobile:

Being able to just tap a key and instantly move back and forth between the Editor and preview view is super helpful.

Beyond the preview shortcut, Setka Editor also includes a number of other shortcuts to help you quickly manipulate your designs.

These take some time to get used to. But once you get the hang of things, they really do help you build designs quickly.

Using the Setka Editor Cloud Interface

As I told you before, there’s also a separate interface at Setka Editor’s website that allows you to set up your:

• Pre-defined styles
• Custom snippets
• Grid systems

In the Styles tab of the Setka Editor interface, you can choose fonts, sizes, and more for each individual element on your page (as well as for specific devices):

If you click over to Snippets, you can add as many custom snippets as needed. Just be aware – you’ll need to know HTML for this part, as that’s the only way to create a new snippet:

And finally, the Grid Systems tab allows you to create new grid systems, complete with custom gutters (spacing in between grid columns) and margins:

How Much Does Setka Editor Cost?

Setka Editor comes in both free and premium versions. For casual use, the free version should be fine. Just be aware that you’ll miss out on these features:

• In-line icons
• Custom styles beyond the pre-defined styles
• More pre-defined styles
• Better font selection
• Animation
• Premium support

If you’d like those features, there are two pro plans:

• Basic – $8.25 per month paid annually
• Pro – $16.50 per month paid annually

The main difference between the two is the number of customized styles allowed, as well as what types of customizations you can make.

Final Thoughts

This is the third chance I’ve had to review Setka Editor, so I feel fairly comfortable with it at this point. It’s definitely a slick way to style post content for WordPress. More lightweight than a page builder and also more focused on “beautiful content” than heavy-duty page building.

The interface does take a little time to get used to, though. Because it’s fairly unique, you’ll probably struggle with adding some more complex styling when you first install it. But once you get the hang of things, it’s super simple to manipulate elements and add styling.

I also love that there’s no lock-in – if you ever disable Setka Editor, it leaves behind clean HTML. No need to worry about shortcode chaos or anything.

So if you want a cool way to style your posts, set aside 30 minutes or so and play around with Setka Editor. Spend some time to learn the interface and I think it will pay off for you.

Download Setka Editor at WordPress.org

Go to Setka Editor Website