Themes
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Overview
A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying, unifying design for a blog. WordPress.com currently has a very diverse collection of over 70 gorgeous themes (and we’re always adding more!) which you can easily preview and activate from the Appearance -> Themes area of any blog’s dashboard.
To view all the themes available to you (as well as preview and activate them), you can access the Appearance -> Themes menu option in your blog’s dashboard. You can change themes at any time. If you do not see the Appearance menu option, this means that you are not an administrator on the blog.
From Appearance -> Themes you will see your ‘Current Theme’ activated.
Please note that the currently selected theme will not appear in the results when browsing or searching for other themes.
Browsing Themes
You can view themes by their name (A-Z), by popularity (most to least popular), or randomly selected. You can change the viewing mode by selecting one of the options at the top of the browse area:
When viewing by name or popularity you will be able to page through the available themes using the pagination buttons:
When viewing random themes you will be able to refresh the themes and view another random page by clicking the refresh button:
Searching
Looking for a particular theme or theme feature? Enter this in the search box, click search, and you’ll only be shown themes that match.
Note that the themes will be displayed according to your viewing mode. If you are viewing by name they will be shown alphabetically, if you are showing by popularity they will be ranked accordingly, and if viewing randomly you will be shown a random selection of themes that matches your criteria.
Feature Filters
In addition to searching you can reduce the number of themes shown by using feature filters. For example, if you only want to see themes with two columns then you would select the feature filter two columns.
You can enable Feature filters by clicking on any theme tag:
The more tags you click, the more filters will be enabled. Clicking on an enabled tag will disable it.
In addition you can click on the feature filters link next to the search box:
This will display all available filters:
Note that as with searching, filtered themes will be shown according to the current viewing mode (random, A-Z, or by popularity)
Changing Themes
As you are browsing themes you may want to try one out and see what it looks like. You can do this by clicking the preview link that appears below the theme
If you already know this is the theme you want, you can go ahead and click on the Activate link.
When you click on either the screenshot or Preview link, you will receive a preview window. You can scroll up and down and even click around in your blog to get a very good idea of how the new theme will work with your content. If you like what you see, you can click the Activate link in the top right corner of the preview window.
If you’re just not feeling the theme, click the X found in the top left of the preview window to back out and continue browsing through the theme repository for a better fit.
Widgets
Many of the WordPress.com themes allow the use of widgets, which are custom tools that you can add to your blog’s sidebar to customize its content. You can add widgets to your blog from Appearance -> Widgets. Please note that not all WordPress.com themes support widgets.
Widget-enabled themes will include some default widgets. You will notice that when you go to Appearance -> Widgets, these default widgets will NOT appear in your Current Widgets listing. To remove the default widgets, simply go to Appearance -> Widgets and add any widget(s) you like to your blog’s sidebar. This will replace all default widgets with your own!
For comprehensive information on WordPress.com widgets, please refer to our widget documentation.
Video
Watch the “Choosing a theme for your blog” video from WordPress.tv.
Last modified: October 21, 2009
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