How to Add Custom CSS
You can use the CSS editor to customize the appearance of any WordPress.com site with a Premium plan or higher. It works by allowing you to add your own CSS styles to override the default styles of your theme.
Access the CSS Editor
To access the CSS editor, go to My Site → Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS:
Note: you must have either WordPress.com Premium, WordPress.com Business ,or WordPress.com eCommerce active on your site to be able to add custom CSS to your site.
Default Placeholder Comment
If you have never added CSS before or if you have recently changed themes, you will see the placeholder comment shown below.
/* Welcome to Custom CSS! To learn how this works, see https://wp.me/PEmnE-Bt */
The placeholder comment can be left in place or deleted and replaced with your custom CSS. It does not affect the code you add below.
Previewing and Saving
When adding CSS code on your site, your changes will automatically be applied to the preview window, but they won’t actually be saved until you click the Save Changes button.
CSS Revisions
The latest 25 revisions of your CSS edits are saved and can be accessed in the CSS editor.
If your site does not have plugins installed, click CSS Revisions in the top right corner.
If your site has plugins installed, click “See full history” at the bottom of the CSS editor. If the option does not show, it means there is no CSS history to restore.
What if I change themes?
CSS is theme-specific, so all of your CSS is moved to a revision when you change themes. To review or restore past CSS, use CSS Revisions.
CSS Help
Need CSS help? We can provide limited CSS support through live chat or email. Feel free to reach out and we’ll let you know if we can help with your CSS request. Otherwise, we can help point you in the right direction!
If you’re just getting started, there will be a learning curve, but CSS is a very valuable and reusable skill. There are a TON of great resources on the web to get you started with learning more about HTML and CSS. This handy series of articles on CSS is a solid starting point:
- An Intro to CSS, or How to Make Things Look Like You Like
- An Intro to CSS: Finding CSS Selectors
- Intro to CSS: Previewing Changes with the Matched Rule Pane
Here are a few tips:
- Use a CSS validator.
- Take advantage of your browser’s developer tools. For Firefox, use the Firefox Developer Tools. For Google Chrome, use the Developer Tools. Take a look at our introductory videos for the Developer Tools built into Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer to help get you started.
Tutorials
- CSS Beginner Tutorial by HTML Dog
- Introduction to Basic CSS by FreeCodeCamp
- HTML Dog CSS Beginner tutorial
Advanced CSS controls
Media Width
This option should be used if you have modified the width of the primary content area using custom CSS. The “Content Width” setting is used as the default size for full-size images when they are inserted into your blog. Note that it will not affect the size of some images you added before changing the setting, depending on how they were inserted, and you may have to re-insert some of them after changing the setting.
Start Fresh
By default, the custom CSS you add to the CSS editor will be loaded after the theme’s original CSS which means that your rules can take precedence and override the theme’s styles.
You can turn the theme’s original CSS off completely by clicking the “Don’t use the theme’s original CSS” option in the Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS panel. This will allow you to use any WordPress.com theme as a blank canvas for designing with CSS. This is an advanced option and should only be used if you want to start over and design the CSS for your theme from scratch.
If you would like to build on top of the existing CSS rules—which is the most common and the recommended approach—then you can leave this option disabled.
If you are looking for where to find the theme’s original CSS to use it as a reference, the best thing to do is to use your browser tools. Most modern browsers have a web inspector built right in. You can right-click and select the “Inspect Element” option to see the HTML of the item you clicked on as well as all the CSS that applies to it. Two popular tools for viewing CSS are the Firefox Developer Tools and the Chrome Developer Tools. To help you get started, you can take a look at a support page with some brief screencasts on How to Find Your Theme’s CSS using the web developer tools included with browsers.
Preprocessor
WordPress.com has support for CSS preprocessors LESS and Sass (SCSS Syntax). This is an advanced option for users who wish to take advantage of CSS extensions like variables and mixins. See the LESS and Sass websites for more information. You can select which syntax you would prefer to use at the bottom of the My Sites → Customize → Additional CSS panel.
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