This plugin allows the visual editor for drafts, and then removes the visual editor (regardless of user settings) when content is published.
As of April 2026, Disable Visual Editor When Published is a WordPress html plugin with 10 active installations and a 5/5 rating from 1 reviews. It has been downloaded 1.9K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 4.0+ and PHP false+. Available on WordPress.org since 2015. Last updated 10 years ago — may have compatibility concerns. Top alternative: Shortcoder — Create Shortcodes for….
We frequently prefer to use the visual editor to quickly draft new posts, and then polish the markup in the HTML editor before publishing. We’ve wasted hours cleaning up existing content that was mangled because someone switched over to the visual editor.
We wanted to make sure that existing content would be safe from mangling, but we still wanted the convenience of the visual editor.
This plugin automatically blocks the visual editor – on a per-post basis – only when the post is published.
This plugin does not rely on, or override, per-user settings. This plugin does not rely on per-post settings. This automated strategy works well for us – give it a try!
| WordPress | 4.0+ requiredTested up to 4.4.34 |
| PHP | false+ required |
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