Right now WordPress powers around 27% of all the websites on internet. Such a high popularity of WordPress is due to the fact that it offers lots of benefits to the website owners as well as to the visitors. If you still have not decided whether to switch to WordPress or not then we suggest you to do this quickly if you are really serious about doing something big and impactful in your online business or blog through the WordPress website. For this, first you need to have PSD files which are created by Adobe Photoshop. After that you can Convert PSD files into WordPress Themes. But converting PSD into WordPress can be a bit tricky if you don’t know how to do it. This article can help you in this regard. Here we will discuss the important points you need to know or the steps you need to take while converting your PSD into pixel perfect WordPress website.
● Slicing Your PSD file
The process of converting your PSD to WordPress theme starts with slicing your PSD file and dividing it into Separate image files so that each of the design component is carefully saved as a separate design file. You can use photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop to slice your PSD files. Also you should plan for what are the things which you will need to load as an image in your webpages. You have to try to optimize the images and determine what needs to be static and what needs to be dynamic.
Slicing will give you these components:-
● Background
● header and separator
● Footer and others
You should be very careful while slicing your components and it should be pixel perfect otherwise the final page will have the problem.
● Creating Index.html and Style.css
In this step, you will reach the programming part from the designing part and it is very simple. From the PSD design which you have created, now create a static HTML and CSS template and name the files index.html and Style.css for future use. Although you can use Software tools like Dreamweaver to do this step but learning a bit of HTML and CSS will also be very helpful. You can learn the basic tutorials from the websites like W3Schools, TutPlus or developer communities. Now place your images and sliced up components at the right positions with the help of index.html and the related CSS file. You should follow a responsive web design to make sure that your site looks good and works on all the screens.
● Break Down Your index.html into WordPress theme file structure
Now you have basic template which you need to be ported to WordPress. WordPress has a file structure which you need to follow. You have to upload your web pages to WordPress themes and the plugins and more functionalities can be added. Hence go by WordPress standard file structure and break your index.html file into required .php files. Two major files in WordPress theme are index.php and style.css. There are also many PHP files like header.php, archive.php, sidebar.php, footer.php etc.
Basic files of WordPress theme
● index.php
● header.php
● sidebar.php
● footer.php
Some more related files are:-
● style.css
● rtl.css
● index.php
● comments.php
● front-page.php
● home.php
● single.php
● page.php
● category.php
● tag.php
● date.php
● archive.php
● search.php
● attachment.php
● image.php
● 404.php
● Add WordPress tags
Now import the amazing inbuilt functionalities provided in WordPress into your theme files with the help of WordPress tags. After adding these tags, you can say that you have created a WordPress theme.
Now follow the below given link to know the available WordPress template tags:-
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags
Now place all of the files into a single folder and place it inside the /wp-content/themes/folder which you can found in your WordPress installation.
Now activate your custom theme from WordPress dashbaord.
● Add Functionalities
Till now you have created your own custom WordPress theme from a PSD file. Now you can dd more functionalities to your theme by installing various plugins. You can learn JavaScript to add more features to your theme.
Conclusion
We have just discussed the simple process of converting a PSD template into a WordPress theme. Although the process is simple but if you find it little tricky then you can take help of expert WordPress developers. A developer who is experienced, skilled and has more knowledge of themes will certainly convert your PSD file into a high performance WordPress website.
● Slicing Your PSD file
The process of converting your PSD to WordPress theme starts with slicing your PSD file and dividing it into Separate image files so that each of the design component is carefully saved as a separate design file. You can use photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop to slice your PSD files. Also you should plan for what are the things which you will need to load as an image in your webpages. You have to try to optimize the images and determine what needs to be static and what needs to be dynamic.
Slicing will give you these components:-
● Background
● header and separator
● Footer and others
You should be very careful while slicing your components and it should be pixel perfect otherwise the final page will have the problem.
● Creating Index.html and Style.css
In this step, you will reach the programming part from the designing part and it is very simple. From the PSD design which you have created, now create a static HTML and CSS template and name the files index.html and Style.css for future use. Although you can use Software tools like Dreamweaver to do this step but learning a bit of HTML and CSS will also be very helpful. You can learn the basic tutorials from the websites like W3Schools, TutPlus or developer communities. Now place your images and sliced up components at the right positions with the help of index.html and the related CSS file. You should follow a responsive web design to make sure that your site looks good and works on all the screens.
● Break Down Your index.html into WordPress theme file structure
Now you have basic template which you need to be ported to WordPress. WordPress has a file structure which you need to follow. You have to upload your web pages to WordPress themes and the plugins and more functionalities can be added. Hence go by WordPress standard file structure and break your index.html file into required .php files. Two major files in WordPress theme are index.php and style.css. There are also many PHP files like header.php, archive.php, sidebar.php, footer.php etc.
Basic files of WordPress theme
● index.php
● header.php
● sidebar.php
● footer.php
Some more related files are:-
● style.css
● rtl.css
● index.php
● comments.php
● front-page.php
● home.php
● single.php
● page.php
● category.php
● tag.php
● date.php
● archive.php
● search.php
● attachment.php
● image.php
● 404.php
● Add WordPress tags
Now import the amazing inbuilt functionalities provided in WordPress into your theme files with the help of WordPress tags. After adding these tags, you can say that you have created a WordPress theme.
Now follow the below given link to know the available WordPress template tags:-
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags
Now place all of the files into a single folder and place it inside the /wp-content/themes/folder which you can found in your WordPress installation.
Now activate your custom theme from WordPress dashbaord.
● Add Functionalities
Till now you have created your own custom WordPress theme from a PSD file. Now you can dd more functionalities to your theme by installing various plugins. You can learn JavaScript to add more features to your theme.
Conclusion
We have just discussed the simple process of converting a PSD template into a WordPress theme. Although the process is simple but if you find it little tricky then you can take help of expert WordPress developers. A developer who is experienced, skilled and has more knowledge of themes will certainly convert your PSD file into a high performance WordPress website.
