For pills, a pill popper is necessary. They're available on Amazon pretty cheaply, I think we got 2 for $10 or something. Basically you have the cat facing away from you, so they can only back into your body (and get nowhere), bring the popper up to their mouth, then when they open, possibly because you used your other hand to touch their mouth on the other side, put the popper in and pop the pill. You want to get fairly far in, not down their throat, but fairly far back. Then close their mouth and make sure they swallow, such as by scratching their chin. Then give them a treat or even just some scratches and pets to reward them for being a good cat. I like doing it on the counter in the kitchen, because I don't have to bend down, it's just much more comfortable.

Some medicines can be compounded into a paste that goes on their inner ear. We have one that does this. He's not a huge fan of it, but it goes much better than the liquid it replaced. More expensive, but it's worth avoiding the hassle. The pharmacy compounds it and ships it to us once a month.

I don't have great advice for liquid medicines. We've done it, and one of our cats has a liquid medicine now, and we administer it without an issue. But, the last time we tried it on a different car, the cat just wasn't cooperating at all. Part of the issue may have been that we had to give him 3 different medications, so it was stressing him out by the third one. Two of his prescriptions ended, and the third was the one that we were able to get in paste form for his ear. (Also it might go better now that we have more experience with it.)

Obviously the temperment of the cat is a huge factor here. We popped many pills on our tabby and our current (sick) cat without major issues, but the third cat is much harder. Our other cat barely lets us touch him, so that will be a major problem if he needs medication some day.

The good news is that all of them have forgiven us pretty quickly afterward.