three options at wordpress
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One of the most common questions that volunteers on the wordpress.com support forum answer everyday is: “How do I edit the wordpress.com template?”
The answer is:
Wordpress offers three different options.
(1) You can edit your template or create one of your own only if you purchase an upgrade and undertake css customization but you cannot use javascript.
(2) If you don’t purchase the upgrade, you can alter the appearance of your theme only through the use of customized headers and sidebar widgets. Note that if you do not opt for the upgrade then this link has information on point for you to read.
(3) Although some themes at wordpress.org and wordpress.com may appear to be the same they are not; the software is different. The “please read me first before posting” pink sticky at the head of the forum outlines the differences between wordpress.com blogs and wordpress.org blogs which are on different code bases.A Brief Overview
At wordpress.com we are on a shared multiuser blogging platform and we are not allowed to use iframes, forms, some media embeds and styles, etc. or javascript for security reasons.Two wordpress.com options.
(1) You can choose a theme from the admin area of your blog -> Dashboard -> Presentation -> Themes and select one as is. Many provide for a customized a header and sidebar widgets allow for posting of unique images, etc. to personalize your blog.If you do not wish to use one of the themes made available at wordpress.com through your admin section -> Dashboard -> Presentation -> Themes then you can choose to undertake css customizing a wordpress.com theme or make your own, or you can move to self hosting or a web host and altering a free wordpress.org template.
(2) CSS customization can be used to improve on any existing theme; you can define your own classes for use in posts; you can select the Sandbox theme and build on one of the Minimalist layouts or, opt for no stylesheet and do it all yourself. If you feel you are up to the challenge of customizing a theme then these link, link, link will be helpful.
Although there is a forum and other bloggers may volunteer to help you if needs be, there is no staff support for css customization. There are also css resources that you can access listed in the FAQs blog.
The 15$ you pay to upgrade a wordpress.com blog enables you to to alter the appearance of your theme and but not the underlying php code. Purchasing the upgrade entitles you to customize css on one blog for one year.
And if you are new to wordpress.com then this link will be useful to you because it contains links to the basic resources we use here.
Happy Blogging! -
this is useful but is it going to be stuck in the archives because you can’t sticky it and nobody wants to keep bumping it? or that there is no link to here in other more viewed faq threads?
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That’s 100% right sulz. I figure the next time I have to answer a “how can I edit my theme to personalize my blog question” I’ll be able to locate it quickly instead of going back to my blog post here to pull it out. The second reason I posted it is because there are threads on this in the search box, older ones and changes to the css part have just taken place so this is really an update.
I’d like to wish you a wonderful New Year sulz. May you continue to shine at home, at school and in blogging. :D
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ah, good thinking. if you don’t mind searching 435617 times! lol
happy new year to you too! thanks for all the blogging help and discussions, keep them coming, yea?
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Rewriting the FAQ sticky is on my todo list, I swear! :)
edit: And the first line after hello is going to be “If you’re hosted elsewhere…”
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@drmike
You have so much on your plate. I’m just trying to be helpful without becoming a pain in the … neck. If I am ever becoming a “pain” then please email me rather than saying so on the forum and I’ll back off, I promise. I was raised to be a help-meet (helpmate) and Beloved has trained me well too *lol*. -
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(1) You can edit your template or create one of your own only if you purchase an upgrade
You can?
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You can select the Sandbox theme and build on one of the Minimalist layouts or, opt for no stylesheet and do it all yourself. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=3239&page&replies=49
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There are huge numbers of WP com users who are clearly not very experienced at web development (at all:)). It would assist them greatly if the helpers made an effort to be precise and to adopt a consistent nomenclature. We can not edit our *templates* at all. We can edit a single file or its equivalent – style.css. That is it. Sandbox – it is true – is a kind of hybrid. It does include the option to adjust the layout but only in the CSS. To me at least editing templates conjures up completely different notions.
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@atthe404
I do agree with you. We can not edit our templates at all at wordpress.com. All we can do is change the appearance of our blogs by editing the cascading style sheet. Thanks for the correction.@everyone
I apologize for any misunderstanding that may have arisen due to my use of the word “template” instead of the word “theme” to prevent confusion.@drmike and trent
I would further request that one of our moderators edit my original post above by replacing the word “template” with the word “theme”. -
Unfortunately, I was unable to focus well enough to see and to act quickly enough to edit my post above. Specifically, the phrase “to prevent further confusion” ought to be placed at the beginning of the last sentence.
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