What is the Tutorial About?
Learning how to add custom CSS to WordPress opens up a world of design possibilities. This tutorial focuses on five different methods to add custom CSS to your WordPress site, each with its own advantages and unique features.
5 Different Approaches
- WordPress Customizer:
The simplest way to add custom CSS to WordPress is through the customizer. Navigate to the front end of your site, click on ‘Customize’, then ‘Additional CSS’. This method has the advantage of live preview, auto-suggesting CSS property names, and basic syntax highlighting. However, the CSS is loaded on every page of your site and is tied to your theme. - Inline CSS:
This method involves adding a custom HTML element anywhere in your page or post, wrapped in style tags. The CSS will only affect the styles on the page where it is added, which helps reduce the size of your site-wide style sheet. - Visual CSS Editor:
A visual editor like Microthemer is perfect for those who want full control over their site design but are not skilled at CSS. This plugin writes the CSS for you, allowing you to point and click your way to a fully custom design. - Simple Custom CSS Plugin:
This free plugin in the WordPress repository is similar to the customizer but is not tied to your theme. It has all the same benefits and even has a back-end editor with additional CSS hinting. - Block Specific CSS:
The free Block CSS plugin by Femile adds a custom CSS field to each Gutenberg Block in your editor, allowing you to add block-specific styles. This plugin speeds up your workflow and makes it more accessible for people still learning how to target selectors in CSS.
Benefits of the Tutorial
Understanding how to add custom CSS to WordPress allows you to customize your site’s design beyond the limitations of your theme or page builder. It can help you create a unique look and feel for your site, improve user experience, and potentially improve your site’s performance by reducing the size of your site-wide style sheet.
Use Cases for this Tutorial
- Customizing the design of a specific page or post
- Creating a unique design for your entire site
- Improving site performance by reducing the size of your site-wide style sheet
- Learning CSS and web design principles
