How to make main column wider (show less background)

  • Unknown's avatar
    momo034 · Member ·

    Hi all, firstly, thanks in advance for your help. Secondly, please know I am really novice at how to customize these things. I tried to google around already to get an answer to thing but didnt quite get what I was supposed to do.

    Basically I just want to have the main column with my content to be much wider, either by sacrificing space in the widget column on the right to make it more narrow, or showing less of the background, or both. How can I do this? And if the answer is that I can’t with this theme, can anyone suggest a similar free theme and that does permit this and then walk me through the steps of how to do it? Many thanks!

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

  • Unknown's avatar
    nizamilputra · Member ·

    Hi momo034,

    I suggest you to change themes, because theme that you use now it’s not mobile friendly. Maybe you can change with twentysixteen theme, https://twentysixteendemo.wordpress.com/

    But if you want to stay with this theme I can help you by edit the css. You can use this css:

    #access .menu-header, div.menu, #colophon, #branding, #main, #wrapper,
#access{
  width: 1120px;
}
#branding img{
  width: 1120px;
  height: auto;
}

    Let me know you need another help.

    Thank you.

  • staff-loquaciousloon · Staff ·

    Hi @momo034!

    A quick note on the CSS that @nizamilputra shared – adding that kind of code would require access to Custom CSS, which is part of a Premium Plan or Business Plan.

    For other themes, Libretto has a nice narrow center column – you would need to put all of your widgets in the footer though :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    momo034 · Member ·

    Thanks both of you for your tips. So, I am not willing to shell out $50 a month to customize anything, since my number of readers pretty much amounts to my mother and my roommates ;)

    I had no idea my previous theme was not mobile optimized, thanks for pointing that out. I am going to try and play around with the Twenty Sixteen free version. Its amazing to me that there are no decent free themes with a wider main column. If you want to have a side “widget/column” then the main colum with all the text becomes this narrow sliver. I guess that is how they push you into a paid custom package. Wish there was at least one free choice that had that.

    In any event, thanks for the advice!

  • Unknown's avatar
    momo034 · Member ·

    So actually, playing around with this Twenty sixteen theme I do have one question….On my “pages” such as this: https://thescenicroutethroughlife.com/asia-on-two-wheels/

    I like how there is no column or anything off to the left.

    But then on my regular blog posts (Like this: https://thescenicroutethroughlife.com/) you have some stuff on the left like the Date and Category. I found how to choose which things are displayed there, but I would like if on the regular posts there is NOTHING on the left side….exactly how it is on the “page” that I linked to (Asia on two wheels). Anyway to do that? I can’t seem to figure it out.

  • Unknown's avatar
    nizamilputra · Member ·

    That’s sidebar widget shows to all pages (home, single page, archive, etc). If you want to remove it on particular page you need to do it with css :).
    For premium plan you just need $8.25 per month (billed yearly) :)

  • staff-loquaciousloon · Staff ·

    Thanks for clarifying that pricepoint @nizamilputra :)

    @momo034 – Twenty Sixteen’s sidebar will disappear automatically if you remove all of the widgets from it – that would be across the entire site, not just on posts.

    If you wanted to hide the sidebar on posts, but keep it visible in other places, you would definitely need to use CSS.

    One other thing I wanted to clarify – the design decisions on themes (both free and premium) are never intended to “push” anyone to pay for anything :)

    Things like column widths and spacing are determined based on their visual effect, and things like readability. There are volumes written on readability and line length (lots on Google if you’re curious) but the short version is that if the column is too narrow, your readers are jumping to the next line too often, too long and it becomes harder to focus on the text as you read and to find the right spot when moving to the next line. It’s a delicate balance that theme designers need to strike :)

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