Everyone knows that the best way to learn something is by doing it. This means that the more you know about the various aspects of WordPress, the more versatile and powerful your website will be. This article will guide you, written by our team of WordPress experts, will help you convert a PSD to WordPress conversion step-by-step so that you can have the best WordPress website ever!
What is Photoshop?
Photoshop is an amazing, powerful program that is used by professionals all over the world. However, if you are a designer and want to learn how to make WordPress themes for your clients, you will need to know how to convert Photoshop files or images into wp themes.
Having a website with a clean and modern look is something that all of us would like to have. But sometimes it’s more complex than just having a website with a pretty design. There are many elements that you need to have in mind before creating a beautiful and modern-looking website.
So, without further delay, let’s dive into our article.
1. Slicing Existing PSD Into Images
The first step is to slice the individual PSD files into images with the assistance of a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. Keep in mind while slicing the PSD that the number of images on the page will affect its loading speed, so first identify the images according to the components of the website like background, header, footer, etc. and optimize them accordingly. Moreover, make sure that the quality of the images and the number of pixels remain the same after the process as any mismatch or skipping will result in a buffed or low-quality design.
2. Creation of Index.html and Style.css Files
The process of creating a WordPress theme can be very time-consuming and tedious. There are numerous files to create and manage and you must keep track of every single aspect of the theme. Now you have to ensure that all your files are incorrect format, and you put them together correctly.
It’s important to create the HTML file for the complete code of the website and a CSS file for the design of the website interface. All that is required can be done easily by using a programming editor or a text editor like Notepad. Creating both files, “index.html” and “style.css” and then writing the basic code for the header, footer, body of the website, and saving it in the index.html file, and saving the styling code in the style.css file must be done.
3. Breaking Index.html File and Integrating into WordPress Theme Structure
It is important to know the specific file structure of the open-source platform to import the basic templates created in the previous steps of the procedure of PSD to WordPress conversion. Here are the basic files of any WordPress theme:
- index.php: It’s the parent file of the template.
- header.php: This file is used to define the common header for all the pages of the website.
- sidebar.php: This file is needed for the creation of a common sidebar for all pages.
- footer.php: This file is used to define the common footer for all the pages of the website.
The code of the index.html file has to be sorted out into different parts and saved in the corresponding PHP files. Apart from these files, some other files are part of any standard WordPress theme. Here are a few of them:
- style.css: This file is responsible for the presentation of the website.
- comments.php: This file cm displays comments in the theme based on the code in the website file.
- frontpage.php: This file delivers users an unchanging and static front page which is facilitated by this file.
- home.php: This file displays the posts index, whether it’s on the front page or a separate page.
- category.php: It is used for displaying all the categories of the interface.
- image.php: This file ensures the displaying of any single image present in the theme directory.
- archive.php: This file is used to display monthly archives, author pages, categories, etc.
- search.php: This file is essential to facilitate search actions on the website.
- date.php: This file is solely responsible for displaying the date and time on the page.
4. Addition of WordPress tags & Functionalities
The main reason why people want to convert their website to WordPress is to take advantage of its numerous pre-built functionalities by integrating them into a theme using relevant tags.
Almost every theme comes with a wide range of these functionalities, from which a user can simply select from the menu but when creating a custom theme, a user has to find and add such specific functionalities. All these tags and their specific functions can be found easily on WordPress.org.
Conclusion
If you are interested in creating a professional website, then you should at least once consider PSD to WordPress conversion. With the points mentioned above, you’ll be able to convert your custom-designed PSD files into a responsive WordPress theme.
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