CREATE A WEBSITE

How to Install a WordPress Child Theme – Short Course

By Philip Yiga | July 12, 2017

Child-themes help in making customizations within your WordPress-website and the fact is that child-themes allow you to take advantage of powerful-features within the parent-theme or framework. Additionally, WordPress child-themes depend on the parent-theme/theme-framework whereby child-themes can use the features and appearances of a parent-theme without even touching any code. So, if you really want to install a child-theme onto your WordPress-website then in this article I will show you how to easily install child-themes in WordPress.

Method-1: How to install a WordPress child-theme:

Installing a WordPress child-theme is an easy procedure that can be quickly done in case you follow the right installation steps as shown below;

Go to the themes-page: installing a new child-theme require going to the Dashboard >> Appearance >> Themes and after accessing the themes-page you will need to click on the “Add New” button as shown in the illustration below;

Below is an illustration of a theme-page that appears after clicking on the “Add New” button:

Search for a preferred child-theme: if your child-theme is free of charge on the wordpress.org theme-directory, then just type in the name of the child-theme you need in the search-box as shown in the illustration below;

Install your child-theme: after searching and getting a preferred child-theme, click on the “Install” button on the theme. So, after clicking on the “Install” button WordPress will start downloading and installing the child-theme as shown in the illustration below.

Activate your child-theme: after installing the theme-child, you will now need to activate your theme by simply clicking on the “Activate” button. In fact, this will help to make your child-theme functional but it will also look for the required parent-theme.

Note: incase the parent-theme is available in the wordpress.org theme-directory then it will automatically get installed in order to provide a platform for your install child-theme.

Method-2: How to upload and install a child-theme inform of a zip-file:

In case you just purchased a child-theme and it was provided inform of zip-file, then below are some of the detailed steps you will have to follow in order to upload and install into your WordPress-account.

Go to the themes-page: as in the first-method, here you will also need to go to the Dashboard >> Appearance >> Themes and then access the theme-page. Afterwards, click on the “Add New” button to access the theme-uploading page as shown in the illustration below:

Click on the “Upload theme” option: after click on the “Add New” button, you will be taken another page listing all the available themes for installation but just click on the “ Upload Theme” button in order to access the upload-options for your child-theme zip-file as shown in the illustration below;

Below is an illustration of a window that will appear after clicking on the “Upload Theme” button:

Choose the theme zip-file on your computer: after clicking on the “Browse” button, a new-window will open-up redirecting you to the computer-folder where you will need to locate and select a the theme zip-file that downloaded earlier as shown in the illustration below;

Below is an illustration of the zip-file being uploaded after clicking on the “Open” button?

Install the theme zip-file: after uploading the selected zip-file, click on the “Install Now” button in order to begin the theme-installation process as shown in the illustration below;

Below is an illustration of what happens after clicking on the “Install Now” button:

Note: the installing child-theme will also check whether the parent-theme is installed and in-case the parent theme is available in the wordpress.org theme directory then it try to install itself automatically. However, if the parent theme fails to install automatically then you will need to install it manually.

Method-3: How to Install WordPress parent-theme manually:

WordPress usually tries to automatically install a parent-theme incase its available in the WordPress theme-directory. However, the parent theme fails to install to get installed automatically then you won’t be able to activate the child-theme and this will appear in a message “Broken Themes” as shown in the illustration below.

So, below is a step-by-by step guide on to install a parent theme onto your WordPress account:

Search and download the parent-theme file: the first thing you will need to do is going to the parent-themes website and then download the parent-theme zip file as shown in the illustration below;

Below is an illustration of what appears after clicking on the “Buy Genesis” button:

Upload the parent-theme zip-file: after buying and downloading your parent-theme zip-file, go to your WordPress Dashboard >> Appearance >> Themes and then click on the “Add New” button as shown in the illustration below;

Click on “Upload Theme”: after clicking on the “Add New” button, a new window will open-up and it’s from here that you will need to click on the “Upload Theme” button in order to access the downloaded parent-theme zip-file on your computer as shown in the illustrations below.

Click on Browse and upload the parent-theme file: after clicking on “Upload Theme“, a file uploading-option will appear and you will just need to click on “Browse” in order to access the downloaded parent-theme zip-file as shown in the illustrations below:

Afterwards, click on the “Open” button in order to upload the parent-theme file into WordPress as shown in the illustration below;

Install your parent-theme and activate it: after uploading the parent-theme zip-file, click on the “Install Now” button to install the framework files and then finish by activating your parent-theme as shown in the illustrations below:

Afterwards, you will now be able to download, install and activate different child-theme within your WordPress-account so that you can make the required designing on your WordPress-website.