How to change fonts in a WordPress dashboard

Aquick techie post here for WordPress aficionados. Back in August 2016, WordPress made a major update with version 4.6. One change that I abhorred — given that I’m a writer who’s accustomed to crafting blog posts in a standard sans-serif font — was the reversion in the admin dashboard to an ugly serif system font.

So, for my five WordPress sites, I asked my developer, David Davis, to bring an Open Sans or Verdana look back to my dashboard. (Note that none of this is visible to the public, only to the author.)

Here’s what he came up with:

Ok here are the steps for this one.

Go to active theme’s functions.php file

Add this code:

function customAdmin() {
$url = get_settings(‘siteurl’);
$url = $url . ‘/wp-content/themes/anariel-child/wp-admin.css’;
echo ‘ ‘;
}
add_action(‘admin_head’, ‘customAdmin’);

Then you have to create wp-admin.css in the active theme’s folder.

Then add this CSS.

.wp-editor-area {
font-family: Verdana, Consolas, Monaco, monospace !important;
}
#wp_mce_fullscreen {
font-family: Verdana, Consolas, Monaco, monospace !important;
}

Now, this involves ftping in and then using an editing program like BBEdit to make the change. If that’s above your pay grade, there’s also a WordPress plug-in that does the trick, though I haven’t used it: Admin Custom Font.

I’ll be referring back to this post the next time I want to launch a new WordPress site.