Easy-to-Follow Tips to Convert PSD to WordPress

WordPress is a great solution for those who want to start off their online venture, without spending a huge amount of money. It is a user-friendly CMS platform that allows people to create and customize a site without any coding skills. Even, you can create a professional looking site from scratch by converting your PSD design to well-coded WordPress theme.

Today, most of the businesses are opting for the PSD to WordPress conversion services by hiring experienced web developers or WordPress development companies. Their job is to convert the Photoshop design into a responsive, scalable and beautiful WordPress website. They mold your ideas and create a visually-appealing website for you.However, the complete process of converting PSD design to WordPress is a hard nut to crack. There are some key factors that you need to keep in mind while executing conversion Process. You need to take care of each and every aspect that can help you create a successful site with ease. In this post, we will share some tips that will help you convert your PSD to a well-designed WordPress.

Here we go:

• Analyzing the PSD File

Evaluating the design is one of the crucial steps in PSD to WordPress conversion. Here, you first need to analyze the design in detail and cut the design into portions and stick the labels, so that a client can get what you are actually going to do with the conversion and how will you remodel the design into a WordPress site.

In simple terms, this step will help you and your clients to understand the entire process such as splitting of mock-up into HTML, Semantic Structure, Footer, Header and the Images, etc in a better way.

• Split PSD to HTML

Once analyzing your design, you need to split the Photoshop design to the HTML for better understanding. This step is all about writing HTML mark-up structure  on the PSD and on the divided parts such as footer, header, content, sidebar, etc. Also, make sure that you offer semantic code structure that is compliant with W3C standards and WordPress Theme Development Guidelines.

Read Also-

How Do Companies Follow the PSD to WordPress Conversion Procedure?

How to Choose the Best PSD To WordPress Conversion Company?

5 Steps For Converting PSD File into WordPress Theme

• Slicing the PSD

You can use PhotoShop or Fireworks  software for this particular step. You can also use a powerful Slice Tool and label each slice accordingly, or you can edit each slice one at a time – this all depends on your preference.

Well, I would suggest you to use the Photoshop Slice tool if you want to slice your background images. The tool will make your job easier. But for the scripts or hover states images,  you first need to slice them one at a time and stack them into a PNG file.

• Creating Separate File Structure

After slicing your PSD file, you may now create the file structure of your WP theme. Here, you need to create a webpage, including homepage and inner pages for your site. For this, you need to assemble all the sliced images in a way that it will look like your PSD.

Some of the common files you need to create are: footer.php, header.php, style.css, index.php, functions.php, etc. You can also extend your theme’s functionality for more customization. You may also need to add the templates for Pages (page.php), Sidebar Area (sidebar.php), Blog Posts (single.php), Search Result (search.php), Error Page (404.php), etc.

• HTML to WordPress Integration

This is a crucial step where you need to look into your HTML codes and determine which part of your mark-up will be copied and pasted on the WP Themes Files.

For an example, you can place the line beginning from the Doctype Declaration down to the

tag in the header.php while the line beginning from the end tag of the body tag () will be pasted in the footer.php. And the remaining mark-up will be pasted in the page.php, index.php and single.php. These can be slightly re-coded to embed dynamic functionality.

• Validation and Cross Browser Compatibility

Once you are done with your conversion, you can test your site as per the basic WordPress functionality, CSS and Markup Validity and cross-browser compatibility. These factors play a key role in determining the reliability, usability, and accessibility of your site. You can use online validator tool such as W3C Markup Validation Service to check whether your codes are up to the latest web standards or not.

Also, make sure whether your site is cross browser compatible or not. To check this, you can use  BrowserStack, an online virtual server that provides multiple sets of operating systems and browsers, including desktop, Mac, and mobile.

Use IETester to check  the site in Internet Explorer browsers (from 6 to 9 versions), Opera Mobile Emulator and Android Emulator. Also, install a virtual operating system on your local machine by making the use of Oracle’s VirtualBox or VMWare.

Conclusion

PSD to WordPress theme Conversion service is gaining a lot of popularity these days. Both the large and small scale businesses are hiring reliable web development companies that can convert their PSD designs to beautiful, W2C validated WordPress site within a given time period. With the help of these tips, one can execute the conversion process with ease and deliver the quality result on time.