Quick Guide: Creating a Child Theme in WordPress (Video)

Create a Child Theme In WordPress, this is a recommended practice for those who want to customize their website without risking losing changes after updating the main theme. In this quick guide, we will show you how to do this effectively, including a video that will help you follow each step.

What is a Child Theme?

A Child Theme is a theme that inherits the functionalities and styles of another theme, known as parent topic. Use a Child Theme allows you to make modifications without directly modifying the parent theme files, ensuring that your customizations are not lost with future updates.

Advantages of using a Child Theme

• Security of changes: Updates to the parent theme will not affect your customizations.
• Better organization: Keeps your custom code separate, making it easier to manage.
• Ease of reversal: You can disable the Child Theme and return to the parent topic at any time without losing your settings.

Steps to create a Child Theme

Next, we explain the process of creating a Child Theme in a simple way. This guide includes the creation of necessary files and basic configuration.

1. Create the Child Theme folder

To begin, you will need to create a new folder in the WordPress themes directory. Access your server via FTP or File Manager in your control panel and navigate to the path:

/wp-content/themes/

Inside this folder, create a new folder named, for example, my-topic-son.

2. Create the style.css file

Inside your folder Child Theme, you will need to create a file called style.css. This file is essential for WordPress to recognize your Child Theme. The basic content of this file should be as follows:

/* Theme Name: My Child Theme Template: parent-theme-name Version: 1.		

					

						

					

			

						

				

																														
				
					
		
				

			

						

				

					
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*/

Be sure to replace parent-theme-name with the name of your parent theme folder.

3. Create the functions.php file

You will also need a file called functions.php, which will be responsible for loading the parent theme style. Create this file in the same folder and add the following code:

This code ensures that the parent theme styles are loaded correctly on your site.

Activate the Child Theme

Once you have created the necessary files, it is time to activate your Child Theme. Go to your WordPress dashboard and access Appearance > Topics. There you should see your new child theme. Click «Activate» to make it live.

Customize your Child Theme

With your Child Theme active, you can start customizing it. You can add your own styles to the file. style.css and make changes to the file functions.php as needed. In addition, you can create other files such as header.php o footer.php if you want to further customize the theme structure.

Additional resources and video tutorial

To make the process even easier, here is a video tutorial where you can see each step in action:

In addition, we recommend visiting the official WordPress documentation for more information and examples on Child Themes.