How do I Update my WordPress Theme?

Themes change the formatting of your WordPress site, impacting the colors, font styles, spacing, and many other aspects of your website. Changing your theme will not change any of the content of your site, but it will change the "look and feel." Some themes may work better than others depending on the types of content that you have. 

Bucknell WordPress has a limited number of themes to choose from that meet our accessibility and security standards.

Only administrators on a WordPress site can change the theme.

 

Logging in

To change your WordPress theme, you first need to log in. The easiest way to do so is from our WordPress landing page:

  1. Go to Bucknell Blogs Home (https://www.blogs.bucknell.edu/)

  2. Click on the "Log in" button and use your Bucknell username and password.

The Bucknell WordPress home, highlighting the Log In button.

  1. If you are the current administrator for any site, you will be given a list of those sites and an option to access the Dashboard:

The "Your Sites" screen that appears when you first log in to WordPress at Bucknell, first saying that you don't have privileges on the Bucknell Blogs dashboard and then listing out the sites that you do have access to.

  1. To view the theme and settings on your site, click on the Visit Dashboard button next to it.

  2. Once you are logged in, you will see a black toolbar at the top of any site you have editing access to. If you hover over the name of the site (“BXK Demo Site” in the example below), you can access the dashboard.

The WordPress dashboard that appears at the top of all of your WordPress sites once you are logged in.

 

Changing Your Theme

Start from your site's dashboard:

  1. Hover over the "Appearance" tab on the left and choose "Themes”. The theme listed as "Active" in the top left is your currently active theme.

The Wordpress dashboard, highlighting the themes tab on the left under Appearance.

  1. If your theme is not on the following list, you need to update it to any of the other themes you see in the "Themes" tab. This is the list of the active, approved themes (you should use one of these)

  2. To see what your site would look like in other themes, hover over the box and click "Live Preview."

  3. When you are ready to switch themes, hover over the theme and click "Activate." Once you switch to a new theme. You can change your theme as many times as you would like to.

 

Finding help with WordPress

For general WordPress questions, email techdesk@bucknell.edu or stop by the Tech Desk on the first floor of Bertrand Library.

From there, Digital Pedagogy & Scholarship can help you with your WordPress site. We offer consultations to help you get started with a WordPress site, discuss site structure and usability, offer plugin options, or troubleshoot with the WordPress interface. Contact our department directly using our main email: dps@bucknell.edu

Find more articles about WordPress in our WordPress FAQ.