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The Step-By-Step Guide to PSD to WordPress Conversion

This simple step-by-step guide is all about PSD to WordPress conversion. Would you like to convert your theme into a functioning WordPress site? Read on.

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management service. It’s easy-to-use backend and WYSIWYG interface mean that it’s extremely simple for non-developers to create and manage digital properties.

But one particular sticking point is the PSD to WordPress conversion. Here’s a quick guide on how even the most digitally inept of us can do a PSD to WordPress conversion, to turn your beautiful mockups into a real live site.

1. Slice your PSDs

Once you’ve developed your PSDs, you need to convert them into something that web designers and developers can work with. That involves making them HTML/CSS compatible.

This is the first step of a PSD to WordPress conversion. To do this, the designer or developer will ‘slice’ the PSD – that is, cut out a bit using a special tool in Adobe Photoshop which automatically converts that part to HTML/CSS.

For example, you might slice the ‘header’ part of the page, thus generating the HTML/CSS for the header of your site.

2. Coding the slices

Next, you need to code the slices into the right place. This is called ‘coding the board’.

Essentially, it’s like a big jigsaw puzzle of sliced PSDs. Developers use HTML to develop a blueprint of where stuff will go, then use CSS to actually hold it in place.

3. Creating the right templates

When you do a PSD to WordPress conversion, you’re basically creating a custom WordPress them, and then uploading it to WordPress. So you need to turn you coded slices into specifically coded slices that WordPress is used to, called templates.

This way, when you upload your custom design to WordPress, it can understand it and put the right stuff in the right place.

Templates are different standardized files that WordPress will recognize and let you use the CMS to its full capacity. These are different sections to the site, saved as PHP files.

This includes major chunks like Header, Footer, Index, Category, and Search. This involves converting your HTML slices into PHP files and saving them accordingly.

4. Added extras

Odds are, your PSDs don’t cover all the core functionality of your site, and you don’t want a developer to go and write code for every little thing. That’s where WordPress comes in.

You can use the code that’s already there to add all the special extras that make a great site. But to make sure they get to the right place, you need to tag where each thing is supposed to go with an inbuilt WordPress tag. The CMS will do the rest, saving you time and money.

At this point, your site has moved out of code and Adobe and is now fully integrated into WordPress. For the most part, changes from here on out will be used the WordPress interface.

5. Functionality and testing

Lastly, you want to make sure it works in all browsers, is compatible with all devices, and add in any extra functionality that might be missing. This is where plugins really shine, which you can access through WordPress.

PSD to WordPress conversion is a complex task and one that’s essential to do well for a powerful, functional site. It’s easy for a poor conversion to make a site hard to manage and dysfunctional to use.

That’s why we recommend you hire a pro to help you make the conversion. It’s a little money now to save you a LOT of headaches later.

Looking for help with your PSD to WordPress conversion? Get in touch to see if our service is right for you!