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Permalink Reply by jewel33 on May 7, 2010 at 9:42pm

Blake:

Go to your blog, then click the "Customize" link in the upper right corner. Click on "Dashboard". You should then be at your dashboard. There should be a little blurb near the upper right with a checkbox next to it "Make Blogger in Draft my default dashboard". Check the box, then click "Layout". Under the tabs, one of the options should now be "Template Designer". Click on that. Once the Template Designer page loads, click on "Layout". You can then choose a layout, play around with it in the preview pane below, change to a different layout ... whatever you'd like. Click "Templates" to see a preview of what your blog will look like with the new layout. Nothing is saved until you click "Apply to Blog" in the upper right, so you can change quite a bit without worrying about actually affecting your live blog.

Hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Blake Ryan on May 7, 2010 at 10:52pm

Thank you! All of that info if helpful, but at he layout page, it says that this template does not allow for layout customizations...? So I can't do it?

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Permalink Reply by Blake Ryan on May 7, 2010 at 11:02pm

okay, so i got through that issue...but the templates completely screw with my background image, text, etc.! do i have to go through and fix EVERYTHING if i change the layout and template and stuff?

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Permalink Reply by jewel33 on May 8, 2010 at 12:07am

I think you must be using an older template, which I didn't consider in my reply to you. I apologize for that.

You can always go back to that one as well by going to Layout/Edit HTML. At the bottom of the screen, there is an option to "Revert to Classic Template" .

When I changed to one of the new templates, I know that I had to go into the html and change the size of some of my side banners .. let me look at your site....Ooh .. I really like it .. it's pretty. I'm being pretty lazy right now and taking my time redesigning my blog...at the rate I'm going it will probably be another two months before I'm done! :)

The only way you can change the columns on most, if not all, of the older templates is to go into the HTML itself, which is ... well, pretty tricky sometimes if you're not a coder.

The other thing I could suggest is that you download a new template from another site following the instructions at Ehow here . She mentions a website btemplates.com to look through for a template. In addition, here are some other sites that offer free templates:

http://www.finalsense.com/services/blog_templates/3columns_blogger_... - this link takes you directly to the 3-column-layout pages.

This site has one: Rainbow Garden

So if you don't like any of the templates on the site she mentions, there are at least two other options listed.

Be certain to follow the specific instructions on any other site that you get a template from; some will take you step-by-step into importing and downloading the code.

It's very important that you follow her instructions to back up your original code, especially if you are going outside of Blogger itself for a template. If your blog gets all wonky and you can't fix it, cutting and pasting the code from your previous template into the "Edit HTML" space under layout will take you back to your previous layout.

I know that it's a pain. I wanted the 3-column layout, but didn't want to go in and write code for it, so that's how I found out about the "Template Designer" and it's 3-column layouts.

I hope I didn't confuse the issue for you. If you look on the right on the EHow site, there are lots of helpful tips and tricks.

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Permalink Reply by Blake Ryan on May 8, 2010 at 1:41pm

Thanks so much for all of your help. None of the other templates from those sites really grab me, and the idea of writing code scares me LOL I am very computer literate until it comes to that stuff LOL

I love my background picture I have now, and the flowy design I have in the background, but don't know how to make all of that work with the template designer. The template designer seems like the easier way to go, but then there is a LOAD of editing to do with fonts and such. I just don't know! LOL

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Permalink Reply by jewel33 on May 8, 2010 at 1:51pm

I think I was rather fortunate in that I wasn't hooked on my old template, and I didn't have a lot of content and widgets installed when I switched to the new template designer. I had to go to the sizing option to change the sizes of the columns (that's where the preview pane on the bottom came in handy) After that, the only real editing I had to do was moving the sidebar widgets around and changing some of the button sizes.

Unfortunately for those of us who use Blogger (especially a classic template), there's only so much one can do in WYSIWIG mode; a lot of changes can be made by going into the HTML, but it's sort of time-consuming (and scary, too, if you're not used to looking at code).

Now that I've been more actively blogging, I kinda wish I'd have started at Wordpress, which has much more easily available customization features AND is much easier to migrate if you ever decide to get your own domain name.

I wish I could have been of more help.

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Permalink Reply by Blake Ryan on May 8, 2010 at 6:15pm

You were a great help!!!! I went ahead and played with the template designer more and sacrificed by photo and other background and am semi happy with the finished product. lol

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