There are thousands of templates that can be installed on WordPress for free or paid, but only a few of them have features and options that allow the user to customize his site exactly as he wants, and provide the ability to create many types of websites, and among the best WordPress templates that provide these features in addition to many more advantages The other is the Astra template, of which there is a free version with powerful settings.
In this article, we will review the most important options for customizing the Astra template in a practical way with the necessary images. We will inform you of the benefits of upgrading to the paid version. We will also teach you how to install ready-made designs and use them on your WordPress site via the template plugin (Astra Starter Sites).
What is Astra template?
The Astra template is one of the most popular WordPress templates, with over a million websites currently using it. It is a versatile template, as it can be installed and used to build various types of websites, including business websites, blogs, resumes, restaurant websites, and even Online stores that operate based on WooCommerce.
This template was developed by Brainstorm Force, which was established in 2009. The company has provided many services and tools within the WordPress framework in addition to the Astra template. The designer company says that its template has high performance and low loading time, provides wide customization options, and integrates with many… Among other WordPress tools, users seem to agree, as it has given 5 stars in more than 4,850 out of about 5,000 reviews on its page in the WordPress themes section.
Customize the Astra template
In the beginning, in order for the Astra template to be activated on your site, you must install it like the steps for installing well-known WordPress templates. You can install it either by downloading it in the form of a Zip file, and then uploading the file to the template installation section on your website, or you can install it directly from Within the Templates section in the WordPress panel without having to download it. If you have difficulty installing the template on your site, we advise you to review our article ( How to install a WordPress template correctly ), in which we explained 3 ways to install WordPress templates.
After installing and activating the template, you will be able to go directly to the template customization page in your WordPress control panel in order to customize the template, as all customization options are included on that page.
You can go to the customization page by clicking on the word ( Customization ) from the drop-down menu that appears when you place the mouse cursor on ( Appearance ) in the side menu.
The customization page that appears after clicking ( Customize ) will look similar to what appears in the following image, where you will find the customization options in the right section of the screen in the form of tabs (or the left if your WordPress language is English), and you will be able to see the changes directly in the second screen section. Which displays a preview of the website after you apply your modifications to it.
The template customization options are arranged within the tabs in a way that makes it easy to make modifications to the template. You will find the general options for the template on a different tab than the Posting Options tab. The Posting Options tab is also different from the Poster Options tab, and so on. We will explain all the important options in the following paragraphs.
General template customization options
The general customization options for the Astra template are located in other tabs under the (Global) tab. When you click on the word (Global), 4 tabs will appear, each of which includes options specific to a specific thing in the template, as:
- Typography has font options and allows modifying their sizes and some other properties.
- Colors includes options for changing colors, as it allows changing the colors of links, backgrounds, titles, etc.
- Container has options that enable you to specify margins and make adjustments to the page layout.
- Buttons contains many options that provide you with the ability to modify the shape of the buttons and their other properties.
Below we will review the important options in each of these four tabs.
Font options
Within the font options on the Typography tab, you can choose one of the options from the Presets section, which includes a number of pre-set font settings, where the settings are automatically adjusted depending on what you choose, or you can adjust the settings according to what you want through the available options. .
There are 3 sections that include almost the same options, and the modifications in each of these sections are applied to a specific group of sentences that are displayed on the site’s pages. The options of the “ Body ” section are applied to all the lines of the template, while the options of the “ Heading ” section are applied to the template titles. Various options, such as sidebar section titles, article titles and subtitles, etc., while the final section options apply to article titles and subtitles on article pages and pages depending on the degree of title, and may also apply to other titles.
The following image shows the options you will find in each section, knowing that the sections appear under each other on the customization page, and we have modified the image to show them next to each other.
As you can see, the three sections contain similar options with slight differences in each section, and the phrases written in English above each setting that can be modified express the property that it changes, as:
- You can choose the font type from the drop-down list below (Font Family)
- You can specify its size by writing the appropriate size in the box under (Size).
- You can modify its weight from the drop-down list under (Weight)
- If you want to make specific modifications to the English characters in the template, you can choose what you want from the drop-down list located under (Text Transform)
- You can also change the spacing between lines using the bar under (Line Height).
- Regarding the Paragraph Margin Bottom option located in the Body Fonts Options section, it is intended for specifying the bottom margin of paragraphs in the template.
- The soft key next to the Underline Content Links option, which is located under the settings of the last section, underlines or removes links in the content.
It is worth noting that you can find the (Inherit) option in some drop-down menus that specify font properties, which means inheriting the value of this property from the element that contains the element to which it is applied. In this case, if you specify this value in one of the drop-down menus, the property will take The same value that you took in the section above it, that is, the (Heading) section takes the values of the properties of the (Body) section, and the section Determining the properties of headings according to their degrees takes the values of the properties of the (Heading) section.
Colors options
The properties and options in the Colors tab allow you to modify and customize the various colors of the site as you wish, including font colors, the background color of the site, and the background color of the content (article), in addition to the degree of transparency. You can also specify an image to be the background of the site or content. Instead of a specific color, you can also make the background fill gradient as well. The following image shows what each of the options on the tab does.
When you click on the option to modify the color (colored circle), a small window will appear asking you to specify the color and other options. To specify the color you want, all you have to do is choose it from that window to be applied directly in the preview area.
Layout options (Container)
These options determine the layout of various pages of the site, including posts, pages, archive pages, and the home page, and there is usually no need to modify them, as they are well set when the template is installed.
Buttons options
These options determine the properties of the site button shapes. There is a section at the top of the tab that includes shapes with preset properties. You can choose one of them if you do not want to specify the properties yourself, but if you need to make the site buttons with specific shapes, the following image shows the properties that are determined by the important options in this Tab, note that the options are under each other on the customization page, and we have modified the image to make them next to each other here.
Site header customization options
One of the important customization options in the Astra template is the options in the (Header Builder) tab located under the (Global) tab that we talked about in the previous paragraphs, as these options provide the ability to modify and customize the header of the site pages, that is, the place where the site’s logo, name, and menu appear. You can change the order of the elements and add new elements such as the search box, etc.
To modify the header of the site pages using Header Builder, click on the tab and a window will appear at the bottom of the screen in which you can add or remove elements to the page header. Options will also appear in the right section of the screen that enable you to modify the properties of the various elements added to the header.
Note that you can add elements by placing the mouse cursor under the Edit Page Header section, then clicking on the plus sign that appears, and then choosing the element you want to add, as the following image shows.
It is also useful to note that when you add an element to the header, an option for it appears in the right section of the screen. This option is intended for modifying the properties of the item. When we click on it, a set of properties will appear that we can modify to change the way the item appears in the header of the page. The properties differ depending on the item.
Blog post customization options
There is no doubt that you will need to make modifications to blog articles and archive pages on your site, if not today, then you will need to do so one day in the future, and that is why the Astra template provides you with the ability to make many modifications related to this, as there is a tab that includes a lot of Options that enable you to customize article pages, archive pages, and the part of the home page that displays articles, and the name of this tab is in the customization page (Blog).
The (Blog) tab includes two other tabs, one of which is (Blog / Archive), which includes options through which the archive pages can be customized and the home page part that displays articles, and the other (Single Post), which includes options to customize the article page itself.
Through the options in the (Blog / Archive) and (Single Post) tabs, you can specify the elements that you want to appear on the pages, and the elements that you want not to appear. For example, if you want the writer’s name not to appear on the article page, you can do that by deactivating the option (Author) located in (Single Post), and if you want to not show the writer’s name on the archive pages, you can do so by deactivating the same option, but through the (Blog / Archive) tab for the archive pages.
The (Blog / Archive) and (Single Post) tabs include almost the same options, and the following image shows what the most important of these options do.
It is worth noting that archive pages do not only include pages containing articles by date, but also book pages, classification pages, and tag pages, and the edits you make under the (Blog / Archive) tab will be applied to all of these pages.
If you are using another template other than the Astra template that does not support hiding article data (author name – publication date – …) from the customization page, and you want to hide all or some of this data without changing the template, we advise you to review our article ( Methods to hide the writer name, date, and article data ) in which we explained several methods that allow you to hide article data from site pages.
Sidebar customization options
The sidebar is an important part of websites, and sometimes we need to make modifications to it to change its size, location, or content. This is why the Astra template provides us with making some modifications to it, as you can hide it or change its location on various pages of the site via the ( Sidebar).
If you want to make modifications to the content of the sidebar, you must click on the pen icon next to each of its sections. A window will appear on the right that includes options for modifying the content of the section that you clicked on the icon next to it.
Footer customization options
The page footer, or page footer for short, is the section at the bottom of the web page. It usually includes copyrighted content, important links related to the site, in addition to site classifications, and sometimes other elements.
The Astra template provides you through the (Footer Builder) tab with the ability to easily create a footer for the web page in the same way as creating and modifying the page header that we explained in the paragraph (Options for customizing the site header). When you click on the name of the tab, a section will be shown at the bottom of the screen that provides the ability to add and remove elements. From the footer, when you add any element to the footer, an option for it will appear in the right section of the screen. This option enables you to modify the various properties of the element, and the properties differ depending on the element.
After you finish customizing the template and making the modifications you want to it, you must click on the Publish button located at the top of the right section of the screen to apply the changes to the template and show them to your website visitors.
Use Astra template designs
If you want to import beautiful, ready-made designs into your WordPress in order to install them on your site and modify them so that they are suitable for it and appear beautiful to the visitor, then the Astra template provides you with the ability to do that easily through the Astra Starter Sites plugin, which provides ready-made website designs that work with website building tools and can Make adjustments using these tools to give the site your personal flavor.
To use Astra’s ready-made designs, you must install the Astra Starter Sites plugin through your WordPress site’s control panel, or by downloading the plugin file in Zip format from the plugin page , uploading it to the site, and installing it manually. If you do not know how to install WordPress plugins, see the article in which we explained how to do that in more than one way ( How to install a WordPress plugin and activate it on your site correctly ).
Then, after installing the plugin on WordPress, you will notice that an item called (Starter Templates) has appeared under the (Appearance) menu in the WordPress control panel. If you want to view designs or import a design to work on and build a website, click on this item. You will then be asked which website builder you prefer to show the designs that work with it, and you can choose the builder you want from among these website builders (Elementor – Beaver Builder – Gutenberg – Brizy).
After you choose the specific builder , the compatible designs will be shown, and you can filter those designs in order to speed up the process of finding the right design.
It is worth noting that not all designs are available for free use, as some of them require purchasing a high-value paid plan from the Astra template website, but a large number of designs do not require payment either.
When you like one of the displayed designs, you can import it into your WordPress, and you will be informed of the plugins that you must install for it to work properly, and you will also be warned that copyrighted images in the design will not be imported.
It should be noted that all the available designs are in English and are oriented from left to right, and you have to make a lot of modifications to them to make them suitable for what you need.
Paid versions of Astra
We previously took a look at the free Astra template customization options, and we learned why the template was highly rated on the WordPress website, as it is easy to customize the various pages of the template, and it includes many ready-made designs that work with different website building tools, and it also features many other advantages, but there are Many functions and features that are only found in the paid versions of the template, including functions related to customization, features related to obtaining more ready-made professional designs, and others.
There are 3 paid plans you can purchase from Astra, which are:
- ASTRA PRO : Includes hundreds of customization options over the free version, including an advanced header and footer builder, advanced font options, WooCommerce widgets, advanced color options, and many more. This plan comes at a one-time price of $523, or $59. $ annually.
- ESSENTIAL BUNDLE : If you purchase this plan, you will get all the benefits of ASTRA PRO, plus many other options and benefits, including the ability to use the paid designs available in the Astra Starter Sites add-on, a widget library that enhances the capabilities of the Elementor site builder, or a library of pre-built widgets and pages. You work with the Beaver Builder website builder as you wish, and the price of this plan is $996, paid once, or $276, paid every year.
- GROWTH BUNDLE : This plan provides everything in the ESSENTIAL BUNDLE plan, plus the Elementor widget library, the Beaver Builder widget library, pre-built pages, Convert Pro and Schema Pro plugins, and other plugins, including most of the plugins that the theme company will develop in the future. This plan will also enable you to access a library of online educational courses that explain how to create websites, marketing, get good clients, strengthen customer relationships, and other important topics to make your project successful on the Internet. This plan comes at a one-time payment of $1,893, or $523 annually.
It should be noted that the previous prices are the basic prices of the plans, and you can often obtain any plan for less than the written price, as the company usually launches offers in which the prices of the plans are reduced to less than half the basic price, and the prices of the plans were at the time of writing. This article is as in the following image.
And here, dear reader, we have finished introducing you to most of the features and options for customizing the free Astra template in a practical way, and we have explained to you how to view the ready-made designs that can be used to build a professional website, and we have informed you of the benefits and additions that you will get when you upgrade to the paid versions of the template, and we note that Conclusion: You may not need a paid version to create a website. The free version may do the trick, but in many cases you will have to purchase one of the paid plans to build a professional website.
