Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Do You Want To Change Your Blogger Template But Don’t Know How?

I have ditched my green blog clothes in favors of a blue one. My long search for a new template has finally ended. This used to be a dilemma for blogspot users. While those using wordpress have nice-looking templates, we, blogspot users, have to be contented of the few available. Sometimes, we just experiment tweaking the colors and the sizes just to make it appear different.

But it is now possible to have those templates previously available to wordpress users. At Eblogtemplates, they have quite an impressive display of free new blogger templates. If you are not yet satisfied, you can search for more using the google search engine. Type “free blogger templates” and search away. And when you have chosen a template, the next thing you might ask is how to install it to your blog.

Here’s a list of what to do:

  1. Download a zipped file of your chosen template.
  2. Extract it on your hard disk making sure that you have the XML file.
  3. Go to your blogger dashboard and click page layout, then click “edit html”.
  4. Download a copy of your previous template. It is for contingency purposes.
  5. Go back to your page layout. Copy the html codes of all your widgets and paste them in word, wordpad or notepad. Label them properly as you may have difficulty in finding them. When you change template, plenty of the widgets will be deleted.
  6. If you have installed meta tags and scripts in your html, like those of PPP, google analytics, webmasters tools, etc…, copy these codes and remember where you placed them.
  7. Then go back to “edit html” and upload the xml file you extracted and downloaded earlier. It will prompt you and display the widgets that will be deleted.
  8. Proceed with the deletion.
  9. Save the template and then view your blog. You can also add those scripts and meta tags before saving the template. What usually remain are the blog posts, links, categories, headers, about me, and the archives.
  10. Then go back to the page layout and re-add those deleted page elements/widgets. Don’t forget to click on “save”.

So, there! I hope you will learn from this post. If you also know any short cut, please feel free to comment here. If you are not confident enough, try creating a dummy blog and follow the steps above. But if you are happy with your current template, keep it as it is. Happy blogging!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

maayong laki jud nis Lazarus da. Great job on your template, and great choice of colors too. Real cool on the eyes.

Dropped by your blogcebuworld.com bai, still nothing? Ikiha na imong webhost oi ...

Panaderos said...

I like your new template. Thanks for the info because I'm seriously considering ditching my current template. There's just too many problems whenever I post a new entry. A lot of reformatting to do. I'm getting so tired of it.

Thanks btw for faving my site. I appreciate it. :)

jho said...

thanks for the site! this will be very useful!

zherwin said...

i am having a hard time changing my templates and looking for a free blogger template out there can be a little scary.

thanks for the info btw. :)

Abaniko said...

I've maintained my blogspot template for the longest time. Perhaps, it's high time for me to have it overhauled. When I have the time. Thanks for the hints.

Lazarus said...

bambit, nagkabuang pud ko pagsugod uy!

panaderos, there are plenty of blogger templates out there. maybe it's time for you to change na.

jho, try this.

zherwin, you can make a dummy blog and practice from there.

abaniko, three na ba yang template mo? parang yan na eversince eh.

Anonymous said...

laz! I changed my blogger template after following your guide :) thank you thank you :)

Gypsy said...

I tried to follow a step by step process before but never had the confidence to do it...I need to do it with somebody right beside me teaching me since I am so clueless with written instructions especially on anything techie...kaya I just asked Aleks to do it for me. Hehe.

Lazarus said...

you're welcome, bambit.

gypsy, natagalan din ako mag change kasi i never had the confidence. but i used one of my other blogs to experiment on. nung na perfect na, i implemented it here.

ALiNe said...

Wow... thanks for sharing.. I'll update mine when I have time.. SALAMUCH!

Brennan said...

lazarus, do you know of a good blogger template that has tabs like wordpress?