How to Customize Help Text in the WordPress Admin Dropdown: Expert Guide

As seasoned WordPress developers with years of plugin and theme customization experience, we know the value of a tailored admin interface. Every WordPress admin screen includes a Help button that opens a dropdown with contextual guidance. Customizing this text—for client sites or plugins—improves usability and professionalism.

To add custom help text to screens like Add New Page, open your active theme's functions.php file and add this reliable code:

add_action('load-page-new.php', 'custom_help_page');
add_action('load-page.php', 'custom_help_page');

function custom_help_page() {
    add_filter('contextual_help', 'custom_page_help');
}

function custom_page_help($help) {
    // Uncomment below to append to default help text:
    // return $help . "<h5>Custom Help Text</h5><p>Your HTML content here.</p>";
    
    return "<h5>Custom Help Text</h5><p>Add your custom HTML guidance here.</p>";
}

This targets Page add/edit screens. Adapt for Posts (load-post-new.php, load-post.php) or other screens. Ideal for our custom plugins, ensuring clear instructions.

Source: Adapted from Sixrevisions Blog