How To Edit Custom Wordpress Page Templates In Cpanel

WordPress uses templates and themes to guide the layout of the website. Just there may exist times when you'd like to create a page with a different look and feel. For instance, many sites have a landing page that looks much different than the rest of the site.

Y'all can create pages with your own design and layout using a custom folio template in WordPress. It's not every bit piece of cake every bit installing a plugin – it requires a bit of easily-on work. Only once yous've created the template, it's simply a click away in WordPress whenever you demand it.

We'll work with PHP and FTP, so some basic knowledge of coding and uploading site files is helpful. (Customizing the template will besides involve working with CSS, PHP, and some HTML.)

Just fifty-fifty if you don't have everyday feel coding, you tin can create a template in WordPress. Just follow the steps here, and by the stop of the article, your custom template will be up and running.

What a Custom Page Can Do For Y'all

A custom page template tin exist useful when you demand to create a divide await and feel from your master website. That tin be washed for marketing purposes or to create a page that is unrelated to your overall site theme.

You tin ready the page in any number of ways without having a negative impact on the rest of your website. Anything you modify on the custom page will not affect the rest of your site'southward layout. Wait at it similar a page that behaves independently from the remainder of your WordPress website.

Creating a Custom Page Template

To create the custom template, we'll utilize a text editor.

If you're a Windows user, the Notepad text editor is already at that place on your computer. Merely any text or website editor (DreamWeaver, CoffeCup, Notepad++, Atom Text, TextPad, etc.) will do the job.

For this tutorial, I'one thousand using the Sublime editor. Your editor interface is likely to look slightly different.

Stride 1

Open your text editor. In a blank folio, enter this line of code:

&amp;lt;?php /* Template Name: MyPageTemplate */ ?&amp;gt;

The code tells WordPress that information technology's a template and will be displayed as MyPageTemplate. You can apply any name y'all'd like. Just make sure information technology's something you'll recognize later.

Save the file as a php file. To keep things organized, give the file the same proper name equally the template name you used. And so in my case, I would save the file as MyPageTemplate.php.

Get out the page y'all merely created open in your editor. We're going to come back to it.

Step 2

Now we're going to upload the file to our WordPress website, then you'll demand an FTP programme. If you don't already employ an FTP plan, effort FileZilla. Funny proper name, peachy FTP program.

Yous can also FTP files from the Windows File Explorer or the cPanel File Manager for your hosting account. But in the long run, a stand up-alone FTP program will be quicker and more efficient.

So open up your FTP programme. We're going to connect to our WordPress "root" directory. (You may besides come across directories referred to as folders.)

My WordPress installation is chosen "demo," so my WordPress root directory looks like this:

You can run across the WordPress files and the iii "wp-" directories.

Click into the /wp-content directory.

So click into the /themes directory.

In the /themes directory, y'all'll encounter the currently installed WordPress themes.

At present click into the root directory for the theme yous're using. In my example, that will be /twentynineteen.

Upload your custom theme PHP file into the theme directory.

Now you see the MyPageTemplate.php file in the twentynineteen root directory.

Nosotros're going to use the FTP program once again in a minute, then don't close it notwithstanding.

Step 3

Log into your WordPress admin console.

Now when you create a new folio or edit an existing folio, your custom template is available.

I created and saved a new page using my custom template. But when I view information technology on my website, it's blank.

That'south considering our template contains only the unmarried line that identifies it. There's no code in the template file to tell WordPress how to display the folio.

So that's what we'll do next. Add together the code to our custom template to display the page contents.

It's not every bit difficult as it sounds. We're going to make things easier on ourselves by copying the existing theme page template. We'll utilize that as the basis of our custom template.

Step iv

Head back to your FTP program.

In the theme root directory, where we uploaded our custom theme file, look for the file chosen folio.php.

Download it to your computer.

Now open up it in your text or website editor.

Copy the contents of page.php and paste them into your custom template file.

Our custom template now looks like this:

Our custom page template already has a header, so nosotros're going to cut the header section out of the code we copied from folio.php.

We're cutting the section that starts with /* and ends with */ – it looks like this:

After the header is removed, our custom folio template volition await similar this:

Save the custom page template file and upload it again to the theme root directory. Information technology's going into the aforementioned place we uploaded the first version of the file.

Now, if yous become to the page on your site that uses the new template, you'll no longer come across a blank page.

Taking Your WordPress Custom Template From Here

As yous no doubt noticed, your custom template page looks just like the rest of your existing site. That's because we used the theme page template equally our starting point.

From this bespeak, you'll have to get into some more involved coding to create the page you'd like. But if you're handy with HTML or have some basic PHP skills, information technology'due south within your reach.

To give you lot a elementary example, I'll add together a header image by adding a single line to the template file. The line is an paradigm tag that contains the path to a header image I created and uploaded.

That small-scale edit gives the pages that use the template a header paradigm.

Where yous take a custom page template is up to your own creativity.

Does This Method Also Work for WordPress Posts?

Information technology does not. Posts and pages are rendered in very unlike ways in WordPress. That being said, there are plugins that let you create custom post templates.

Will Mistakes or Errors in a Custom Folio Template Pause Your Site?

No. The dazzler of the custom page template is information technology'due south isolated from the rest of your posts and pages. And then any errors in your template simply bear on the page or pages that use it. And if that happens, you tin always change the template for the folio dorsum to the theme's default folio template. That will eliminate the mistake until you tin can fix your template.

Non-Coding Alternatives for a Custom Layout

If the method nosotros've outlined here seems likewise involved, you can likewise create a custom WordPress page template using a plugin.

It's also possible to create a custom layout using a folio architect. Page Builder by SiteOrigin gives you the ability to exercise unique design while using widgets inside the content.

Either plugin is a viable option. And at that place are a lot of other page builders out in that location that yous tin can endeavor. But the way nosotros've done information technology in this commodity is the most lite-weight option. It doesn't require any extra resources, while many (most) plugins do use memory resource.

Custom pages have purposes ranging from advert a production or service to creating a landing folio for campaigns. With a piddling programming or HTML cognition, there'south no limit to what you tin design in WordPress.

Do yous recollect you will use custom pages on your WordPress site? Are there sites you visit to larn HTML or PHP? Let me know in the comments.