This video introduces you to a quick 2 minute demonstration of how to change the theme on your blog.

Video Tutorial!

See Also:

• What to consider when choosing your blog’s theme
• Changing your blog’s theme
• Uploading your Custom Image Header

Your ‘Current theme’ is shown near the top of the screen.

All “Available themes’ are shown at the bottom of the screen with 15 themes per page. To view all themes you need to check each page.

To preview any of the available themes just click on the screenshot of the theme or click on Preview.

This loads a preview window where you scroll down the page to see what that theme looks like on your blog. Clicking on links such as comments, page links, categories and tags takes you to that area of the blog so you can see how the theme looks without having to activate the theme.

If you like the theme, and want to use the theme, just click Activate on the top right hand side of the preview window. Click the X on the top left side to close the Preview window and continue browsing the theme repository.

To activate any of the available themes, without previewing, just click on the Activate.

Once your themes has been activated you can visit your blog site from inside the administration area of your blog by clicking on Visit Site.

Tip:

1. If you hold the Ctrl key and then click Visit Site this loads your blog in another tab in your web browser.
2. Don’t spend too much time initially on your blog theme because you will find that you change it as your tastes change.

Need help choosing your Edublogs theme?

1. Check out The 100 Edublogs Themes Separated Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier
2. Edublogs Themes That Allow Comments on Pages!

Edublogs provides over 100 themes for you to choose including:

1. Themes that can’t be altered and are “use as is”.
2. Themes that are “extremely customizable”  allowing to change font types, font color and background color.

Every newly created blog has the same default theme which you can easily change using the Appearance > Themes or Appearance > Premium Themes area of your blog’s administration panel.

Almost all Edublogs themes include ability to:

1. Upload custom image headers
2. Add a background image
3. Display comments on pages

Features worth considering when choosing a blog theme include:

1. What is your preferred layout?

Blog themes normally include a:

1. Header -  the area at the top of a blog where the blog title, graphics, and possibly navigational links appear.
2. A content area – for your posts or page.  Posts are where you normally publish the latest update or new article on a blog.   They are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of the page.
3. Sidebar area - for your widgets

Themes come in several standard layouts:

• Single column with no sidebar (widgets are located at the bottom of the blog)
• Two Column – normally a wide column for content and narrower sidebar
• Three Column – with sidebars side-by-side on one side of the blog or either side of the wider content column
• Four Column – one content column and three sidebars. The content column is often the same width as the other columns. This type of layout tends to be cluttered looking and less suited to reading lengthy content.

Two or three column are the most commonly used layouts.

When considering layout you need to think about which side(s) do you prefer the sidebar to be located? Also make sure you check out the width of the blog and the post area.

2. Do you want your tagline displayed in the blog header?

The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog.

Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.

You change your tagline as follows:

1.  Go to Settings > General in your dashboard.

2.  Add your new tagline and click Save Changes.

3. Do you want to be able to upload your own Custom Image Header?

Being able to upload your own custom image header means you can add your “own personal touch” to your blog.

You can use a custom image header as a work around for blog themes that don’t include taglines.  All you need to do is add a tagline to your image header using an image editing tool.

Most themes allow you to upload a custom image header.

You  upload your own custom image header as follows:

1.  Go to Appearance > Header in your dashboard.

2.  Click on Choose file, browse for the image on your computer and then click on Open.

• Only .jpeg, .gif, and .png files can be used for image headers.
• For best results we recommend you resize the image to the exact dimensions recommended for that theme before uploading by using an image editing program.

3.  Next click Upload.

4.  Your image will upload and if it isn’t the exact dimensions you’ll need to select the area you want to crop and then click Crop and Publish.

5.  Your new image header should appear immediately on your blog. However if it doesn’t try clearing your web browser cache by holding the Ctrl key and pressing F5.

4. Do you want navigation tabs across the top of your theme which links to pages?

Some blog themes have links to pages hard coded into the navigation tabs at the top of the theme.

• You can remove links to pages in the top navigation using a custom menu navigation bar (via Appearance > Menu).
• Add links to pages in your sidebar using the page widget (via Appearance > Widgets).

5. What are your preferred color scheme?

When choosing your theme remember that if color scheme makes your content hard to read you will lose readers. So balance your personal preferences with readability since ultimately you want people to read your content.

Don’t just look at the overall color — remember to check closely the color of: the header; the background; post text and links; post titles; headings in posts; widget titles and links.

While most of the standard Edublogs themes color schemes can’t be altered i.e. “use as is” there are a few themes that allow you to change the theme’s color.

6. What customisation options do you like?

Most of  themes don’t have extensive customisation options and are “use as is”.

However, there are themes that are “extremely customizable”  allowing to change font types, font color and background color.

With these types of theme you normally customise them via their Appearance > Theme Options page.

Choosing your blog theme

New bloggers often spend considerable time changing their blog theme to work out which theme works best for them.

While you do have a limited time to make the right impression for first time readers….Don’t spend too much time initially on your blog theme because you will find that you change it as your tastes change.

These posts will help you choosing your blog theme:

1. What to consider when choosing your blog theme
2. The 100 Edublogs Themes Separated Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier
3. Taking The Agony Out Of Using Custom Image Headers

Changing Your Blog theme

In your blog dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes or Appearance > Premium Themes.

Your ‘Current theme’ is shown near the top of the screen.

All “Available themes’ are shown at the bottom of the screen.

• The more exclusive themes on Edublogs.org blogs are in Appearance >  Premium Themes
• Edublogs Campus blogs have all Premium themes included in Appearance > Themes  with 15 themes per page. To view all themes you need to check each page.

To preview any of the available themes just click on the screenshot of the theme or click on Preview.

This loads a preview window where you scroll down the page to see what that theme looks like on your blog. Clicking on links such as comments, page links, categories and tags takes you to that area of the blog so you can see how the theme looks without having to activate the theme.

If you like the theme, and want to use the theme, just click Activate on the top right hand side of the preview window. Click the X on the top left side to close the Preview window and continue browsing the theme repository.

To activate any of the available themes, without previewing, just click on the Activate.

Once your theme has been activated you can visit your blog site from inside the administration area of your blog by clicking on Visit Blog.

Uploading Custom themes

Due to how our infrastructure is designed, we are unable to support the uploading of custom themes unless you are using an Edublogs Campus site.

This means you can’t upload any themes to your Edublogs.org blog even if they are available in the WordPress repository.

However, many of our Premium themes have customization options to change the colors, fonts and layouts. While most of our themes enable you to upload backgrounds and header images.