Part One of Three:
Finding New Themes
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1
Download themes from the WordPress site.
WordPress has a large collection of free themes
available from the official website. All of the
themes on the WordPress site have been checked
and inspected for bad code, making the WordPress
official site one of the safer places to download
themes.
Themes are downloaded in ZIP or TAR.GZ (Gnu
Zipped) format. You don’t need to extract the
file to install the theme.
2
Download themes from another site. There are
a large variety of sites that host themes that are
available for free and for purchase. WordPress
themes can be created by anyone, so make sure
you are downloading from a trusted source.
3
Create your own theme. If you have some CSS
and PHP knowledge, you can create your own
custom WordPress theme to really help you stand
out. You can either create a new theme from
scratch or edit an existing theme to your liking.
For more information on creating a new theme
based on an existing one, check out
this guide.
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Part Two of Three:
Installing Themes
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1
Install the theme with the WordPress
Administration tool.
You can install themes using
the web interface of your WordPress
Administration page. You won’t need access to your
host’s cPanel or web server.
Log into your Administration page in WordPress.
Click the Appearance menu. Select Themes.
Click the Add New button.
Choose or upload a theme. You can choose
from the archive of themes, or click the Upload
link to upload a downloaded theme from your
computer.
2
Install the theme using cPanel. If your host has
cPanel installed, you can change the theme using
the WordPress plugin. You will need to have the
theme file downloaded to your computer before
you add it using cPanel.
Open the cPanel File Manager. Navigate to the
Themes folder, located in the wp-content folder.
Upload your theme file.
Extract the file by selecting it in cPanel and then
clicking on “Extract File Contents”.
3
Install the theme using FTP. If you have access
to your website’s server, you can use an FTP
program to upload and install the theme yourself.
Make sure to have the theme file downloaded to
your computer before starting.
Extract the theme file on your computer. Make
sure that you preserve the directory structure
so that everything ends up in the right place.
Connect to your server using an FTP client.
Navigate to the wp-content/themes folder.
Create a new folder for the theme. Give it a
name you can remember, such as “test”. The
final directory structure should look like wp-
content/themes/test. Some theme files will
already have this directory when you extract it.
Upload the extracted theme files to the newly-
created directory.
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Part Three of Three:
Changing Your Theme
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1
Log in to your Administration page. You can
change your active theme from your Administration
page. You will be able to choose from any of the
themes that you have installed.
2
Click the Appearance Menu. Select Themes to
load the theme management utility. You will see a
list of thumbnails for the themes that you have
installed on your server.
3
View extra details on themes. If you want more
information on a particular theme, click the “Theme
Details” button. This will show the Theme Name,
Description, Author, Version, and more.
4
Preview the theme. Click the Live Preview
button when you’ve selected a theme and you will
be shown what your blog will look like with the
new theme. This is not a permanent change, and
can be easily reverted. Using Live Preview will not
affect what your readers will see.
5
Use the theme. If you are happy with how the
Live Preview looks, click the Activate button to
apply the theme to your blog. The changes will
happen immediately. If you want to change
themes, simply select a new one and click the
Activate button.
Source: http://techfile.gq