Displaying a gravatar using user email in WordPress posts and pages

A Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is an image associated with a user’s email address that appears across websites. WordPress has built‑in support for Gravatars, and you can display them in posts and pages using a shortcode. On ruachost.com, this can be achieved by adding a simple PHP function.

Why Use Gravatars?

Provides a consistent identity across websites.
Enhances community interaction by showing user profile images.
Adds a professional look to comments, posts, and author sections.

Steps to Add Gravatar Display

Log in to WordPress with an administrator account.
In the dashboard, go to Appearance → Theme Editor.
From the right‑hand column, select the file named functions.php.

Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following code:

function wpb_display_gravatar($atts) {
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'wpb_user_email' => ''
    ), $atts));

    if ($wpb_user_email == '') {
        global $current_user;
        get_currentuserinfo();
        $getuseremail = $current_user->user_email;
    } else {
        $getuseremail = $wpb_user_email;
    }

    $usergravatar = 'http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/' . md5($getuseremail) . '?s=64';
    return '<img src="' . $usergravatar . '" />';
}
add_shortcode('wpb_gravatar', 'wpb_display_gravatar');

Click Update File to save changes.

⚙️ Using the Shortcode

To display the Gravatar of the current logged‑in user:
```
[wpb_gravatar]
```

To display the Gravatar of a specific email address:

[wpb_gravatar wpb_user_email="john.smith@example.com"]

✅ The Gravatar will appear as an image in your post or page.