5 Steps For Converting PSD File into WordPress Theme

WordPress is one of the most promising content management systems, which powers over 27 percent of websites all around the world. The platform enables both the experienced as well newbie users to create and customize the site from scratch, without any coding.It not only focuses on engaging and user-friendly design, but also believes in boosting the additional functionality of the site- all thanks to its extensive range of themes and plugins. Creating a fully-functional website on WordPress becomes super easy if you select the best range of tools, themes, and plugins as per your requirement.

What Is PSD?

PSD is the native file format of Photoshop. It is a widely accepted file format which supports almost all image modes such as CMYK, RGB, Bitmap, Grayscale, Duotone, and others.

With PSD, you can easily work the individual layers of images even when the file has already been saved. The best thing about PSD is that it allows you to flatten the image layers and change them into different image formats such as JPG, GIF, TIFF, etc. You can use the images to create eye-catching, appealing and professional websites easily and quickly. Many traditional web designers use PSD files in web design and development works.

Although WordPress is a user-friendly platform, at times you need to hire a professional developer if you want a fully-customized website from scratch. In such situations, you should opt for the PSD to WordPress conversion services, as this will help you create a completely new site. However, creating a custom WordPress site is not as easy as you think. For this, you need to learn the easy steps that will help you convert your PSD design to WP theme.

In this blog post, we will try to explore the five steps involved in the PSD to WordPress conversion technique.

1. Slice the PSD File

Slicing is the foremost step in PSD to WordPress conversion. So, first cut and divide the PSD image file into different design files each having the multiple design component of the whole design. This step is important because the single image will be big in size and will take extra time in loading.  In fact, you will need to incorporate different behaviors with different segments of an image, so you need to slice your PSD file.

Well, there are tons of image editing tools out there in the market but the Adobe Photoshop is the most popular one. Most of the web designers use the Photoshop software to slice or edit the PSD file. The tool allows you to cut the pixel perfect images quickly and easily. You can save the image files either in the JPG or PNG formats.

While slicing your PSD image to the WP theme, you should keep in mind that now CSS is very powerful and it can help you create a variety of beautiful elements just by embedding a few lines of code. For instance, you can create buttons, color backgrounds, lines, footer, header, rows with CSS. So, you don’t need to save these elements as images.

2. Creating HTML and CSS files

Once your images have been sliced, you will need to code them into HTML and XHTML format using CSS. This is the most crucial step because it requires a thorough knowledge of HTML and CSS. For this, you can use Dreamweaver or Fireworks because these tools will help you code your sliced images with ease.

With the implementation of this step, you can determine whether the site will be responsive or not by editing the CSS. Even, you can name the CSS file as Style.css and HTML file as index.html for better understanding. If you love coding, you can check out the following tutorials:

W3Schools

TutsPlus

CSS Basics

Note: But if you are not comfortable with coding, you can hire a reliable web development company that can offer you PSD to WordPress conversion services at the most reasonable price.

3. Divide the HTML File into WordPress Theme Files

In the third step of PSD to WordPress theme conversion, you will need to break the HTML file (index.html) according to the WordPress theme structure. It is because WordPress includes pre-defined sets of files that are merged together to create a webpage.

For instance, while displaying a post, WordPress requires the content of post file, header file, footer file, sidebar file, etc. But you have all the code in just one HTML file, so you will need to distribute the index.html file’s code to different WordPress files. The following are the essential theme files for WP:

• footer.php
• header.php
• index.php
• category.php
• page.php
• style.css
• 404.php
• sidebar.php, etc

You can create these PHP files in any text notepad editor and then copy and paste the relevant code from idex.html to these files.

Make sure you submit each of your code into the relevant PHP file. For example: footer code will go to footer.php, page code will go to page.php file and so on.

4. Incorporating WordPress Tags and Functions

This step is all about converting your simple PHP files into WordPress theme files. For that, you need to embed WordPress tags in your files, without generating a single line of coding. WordPress offers a great collection of inbuilt functions that you can easily embed into your files in minutes.

For an example: if you want to display a list of recent posts on your homepage (index.php), you just need to use the wp_get_recent_posts($args, $output) function of WP and display the list of latest posts on your homepage.

After creating your theme files, you can put them in a folder of your new theme. It also includes other folders to store JS files, CSS files and image files. Now, upload your theme folder in the /wpcontent/themes folder of the WP installation.

After this, go to the WordPress dashboard and access the Appearance > Themes. Here, you will see your self-designed brand new theme. You just need to select your theme and activate it.

Read Also-

Convert PSD to WordPress Service Providers For 2017

Easy-to-Follow Tips to Convert PSD to WordPress

How to Choose the Best PSD To WordPress Conversion Company?

How Do Companies Follow the PSD to WordPress Conversion Procedure?

5. Embedding Functionalities

After creating and activating a WordPress theme, you can launch a brand new WordPress site in a matter of few minutes. You can also add extra functionality to the site or modify the existing one just by installing a relevant WP plugin.

The best part is that WordPress offers a ton of powerful plugins that you can download and install as per your requirement. There is a plugin for everything – speed and performance optimization, security enhancement, Search engine optimization, etc. This means you can embed the additional functionality to your site, without ever getting your hands dirty in coding.

Conclusion

These are the few steps that will help you convert your PSD files into WordPress theme in the least time period. You can also hire a web development company who can offer you quality PSD to WP theme conversion services at the reasonable cost.