{"id":33726,"date":"2022-05-02T08:08:12","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T15:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dhblog.dream.press\/blog\/?p=33726"},"modified":"2025-05-21T19:43:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T02:43:28","slug":"wordpress-templates-template-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-dev.dreamhost.com\/blog\/wordpress-templates-template-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Decoding WordPress: Custom Templates and Template Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With the introduction of WordPress 5.9<\/a>, you can now use Full-Site Editing to customize the appearance of your theme. Furthermore, you can access more design features to build your website without coding using a block-based theme. However, these basic settings might not meet your needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, you can easily add custom templates and template parts to your WordPress block theme. Whether by using Full-Site Editing or editing your theme file, you can create a custom layout<\/a> to reuse when designing new content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we\u2019ll discuss what templates and template parts are. Then, we\u2019ll show you how to create these in WordPress. Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Introduction to WordPress Page Templates<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n
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Themes are some of WordPress\u2019 most versatile features. By installing a theme on your site, you can radically alter its appearance to suit your needs. Plus, it\u2019s usually easy to find themes that cater to your particular niche and offer lots of flexibility during the design process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there are a few things that are difficult to do if you\u2019re only using a theme to customize your site\u2019s appearance. For example, what if you want your archives to have a very different layout than the rest of your pages? Similarly, you might want the sidebar to contain different information on various page types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter page templates \u2014 a way to get more control over your site\u2019s look. In some ways, page templates are very similar to themes. Both are files with code that tell your site how to display information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the name suggests, however, a page template only controls the style of a particular page (or type of page). Many themes come with various page templates to choose from, but you can also create your own. That way, you can decide exactly how it should be set up and what pages should be assigned to follow that template.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding and using templates is a bit more technical than dealing with themes. If you really want to get a feel for how templates work, you may want to spend some time reading up on the WordPress Template Hierarchy<\/a>. This system assigns a priority level to each type of template so that your WordPress site always knows which one to display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We won\u2019t go into too much detail about this concept right now since we\u2019ll first be focusing specifically on page templates. Let\u2019s start by exploring why you might want to use templates in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Benefits of Using Page Templates<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By now, you should have some idea of why page templates are so useful. They provide a lot more control over your site\u2019s look and layout than you can usually get by modifying your theme. The applications for page templates are numerous \u2014 the only limit is your own creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give you a sense of the importance of this feature, however, here are a few examples of situations in which you might want to use a page template:<\/p>\n\n\n\n