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How to Find and Install Free WordPress Themes

Free WordPress themes found in the Free Themes Directory are easy to install and use. These appealing themes are great tools for launching new sites, and you can customize themes with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and basic graphic design knowledge.

By using free themes, you can have your site up and running with a new design — without the help of a professional — pretty fast. And with thousands of themes available, you can change your theme as often as you want. Finding the theme that fits you best may take some time, but with thousands available, you’ll eventually find one that suits you. Trying several free themes is like trying on different outfits for your site; you can change outfits until you find just the right theme.

The WordPress platform gives an easy way to browse the Free Themes Directory page to find, preview, and install themes on your site without ever leaving the comfort of the WordPress Dashboard. The following steps show you how:

  1. Choose Appearance→Themes in the WordPress Dashboard and then click the Install Themes tab at the top of the Manage Themes page.

    The Install Themes page opens.

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  2. Search for a new theme by entering a keyword, author, or tag in the Search box. You can filter the results by using the Feature Filter check boxes to filter theme results by colors, columns, width, features, and subjects.

  3. After you’ve entered your search criteria, click the Search button to the right of the Search box.

    The search results page displays a list of themes for you to choose from.

  4. (Optional) Click the Preview link underneath the theme of your choice to view a sample of how the theme looks. To return to the search results page, click the X in the upper-left corner of the preview window.

  5. After you find a theme you like, click the Install link underneath the theme name to install the theme on your site.

    A new window opens.

  6. Click the Install New button to complete the installation.

    The window closes, and the Installing Theme page appears.

  7. Click the Activate link to activate and display the new theme on your site.

    The Manage Themes page refreshes and displays the activated theme under the Current Theme header, indicating that it is the theme currently in use on your website.

Themes found in the official WordPress Free Themes Directory have been vetted by the WordPress folks. Your Dashboard hooks into the Free Themes Directory page on the WordPress.org Web site, so you find only those themes that are free and safe. Safe themes are free of spam and malicious code and contain basic WordPress functions to ensure that your WordPress site functions with the minimum requirements.

WordPress.org lists the basic requirements that theme designers have to meet before their theme is accepted into the Free Themes Directory page.

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