How to disable Smiley emoticons in WordPress posts

Typing 8) text in WordPress post automatically display as an emoticon smiley image with sunglasses. This is really annoying when specific text is automatically converted into smiley emoticon image in a WordPress post. This happens because WordPress support formatting and conversion of text emoticons into their graphic image equivalent. While smiley emoticons are fun, using them on a serious business oriented WordPress website can look “out of place”. Fortunately, WordPress provide easy way to disable and turn off display of emoticons in post content area.

Turn off smiley emoticon images in WordPress posts

1. Login into your WordPress dashboard and then goto Settings > Writing option on the left sidebar. This will open “Writing Settings” page with listing of various options that you can configure.

2. Next to “Formatting” section, click to uncheck (no tick) next to “Convert emoticons like :-) and :-P to graphics on display” option. Then click “Save Changes” button at the bottom. This will disable automatic display of smiley emoticon image for their text equivalent in WordPress posts.

Video: How to turn off smiley emoticons images in WordPress

P.S. – Display of each smiley means extra image loading in your post section, more smileys shall result into more http requests and load on the server. Hence, it is recommended to turn off this feature – unless you are running a fun filled blog where smileys are natural fit.