changing theme: effect on past posts

  • Unknown's avatar
    jillsbooks · Member ·

    I’ve blogged with my theme for over 7 years and have over 1000 posts. If I switch themes now, will the new formatting somewhat scramble all these past posts? I want to understand what happens to the look, readability, images, links, etc. in my past posts. Probably obvious but I don’t understand how that works. Thanks.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    garysixtyeight · Member ·

    Hi there,

    The post content (images, links, inline styling) will remain the same regardless of the theme being used.

    Changing themes may change some design elements, like the font-family, but it won’t “scramble” content.

  • Unknown's avatar
    jillsbooks · Member ·

    Thanks, Gary. I realize that the actual content won’t change. It is the design I’m thinking about.

    I’m imagining a new theme would have different widths for margins, or entirely new layout options, and wondering what havoc that might wreak on my old posts.

    Might the images not line up correctly with the content any longer? I have to monkey with that to get it to display properly even with my own theme. What happens when the theme changes? Is that all thrown off so it ends up being wonky on the page? Or, right now my theme is just one big page. If I use a theme that features various posts all on the front page, what lands in which box? Sorry, I don’t know the right terms to use to get at what I’m confused about.

  • Unknown's avatar
    garysixtyeight · Member ·

    Yes, themes will have different content widths and layouts.

    I’ve checked several of your recent posts; I can’t see anything that would cause the content to go “wonky” when switching themes.

    Some themes may display excerpts by default on the blog page, but there’s often an option to display the full post too – if that’s what you’d prefer.

    If you’re concerned about switching themes, you could set up a free test site first to see how things would look:

    – create a new site for testing
    – export the content from your existing site, then import it to the test site
    – try activating different themes on the test site

    Please note: you may have to recreate menus and widgets

  • Unknown's avatar
    jillsbooks · Member ·

    Okay, thanks very much. Running a test site is a good idea. I’ll give it a try!

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