When Do You Need Divi Child Theme?

If you’re doing any of the below customizations, then your changes are at risk of being deleted when you update Divi Theme if you do not use a Divi child theme.

Blank Divi Child Theme

A blank child theme, usually referred to as a standard child theme, or “bare bones” child theme, is comprised of at least two files, style.css and functions.php that is added to a WordPress installation after the parent theme.

These files will take over the functionality of the parent theme and override certain files in order to keep the site modifications and functionality made by the web developer.

You can create your own child theme from scratch, use a child theme generator, use a plugin or download our free blank child theme.

We’ll get to that in the next section.

Premium Divi Child Themes

A premium Divi Child Theme is a fully designed website template that are created and sold to help give Divi web designers a starting point for a new web design project.

There are lots of 3rd party Divi developers that create premium Divi child themes that you can purchase from marketplaces like Divi Cake and Divi Marketplace by Elegant Themes.

The premium Divi child themes have the same files, style.css and functions.php, except with more code in them.

Also, they have additional files with customizations as well.

Step 1: Create Style.CSS File

We learned that a child theme is made up of at least two files: style.css, and functions.php.

We’re going to start with the style.css file.

This file is for telling WordPress the details of your child theme, and can also be used to add custom CSS that you want included in your child theme.

Here is how to create the style.css file:

Create a folder on your computer and name it Divi Child Theme.

Then, create a file within the folder and name it style.css. The name has to be style.css EXACTLY for WordPress to read it correctly. To create the file you can use a text/code editor like Notepad++. Or you can use the default text editor tool that comes on your computer. If you are having difficulty creating a file from scratch, you can download our sample style.css file for free and edit it. Once downloaded, unzip then add to the folder you just created in the steps above.

Next, add the following to the style.css file:

/* Theme Name: Divi Child Theme Theme URI: https://divibanks.cloud Description: Child Theme for Divi Author: Divi Banks Author URI: https://divibanks.cloud Template: Divi Version: 1.0.0 */ /*****Add any custom CSS below this line*****/

Now customize what you just pasted above. You can change anything you want, except for the template name (Divi). You can customize the theme author, links, descriptions, theme name, etc. to match your brand!

Step 2: Creating the Functions.PHP File

The second important file for a child theme is the functions file. This is for supporting Divi’s stylesheet as well as for any additional functions you’d like to add.

Here is how to create the functions.php file:

Create another file in the Divi Child Theme folder and name it functions.php

Also, you can download a sample functions.php file here.

Next, add the code below to your newly created file, and optionally add any custom functions. If you downloaded our sample file from above, you don’t need to do anything further unless you would like to add custom functions of your own.

<?php
function divi__child_theme_enqueue_styles() {
wp_enqueue_style( ‘parent-style’, get_template_directory_uri() . ‘https://1cjy3t17q2e1435g023mo061-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/style.css’ );
}
add_action( ‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘divi__child_theme_enqueue_styles’ );

//you can add custom functions below this line:

Step 3: Creating a Screenshot

The last part after creating the style.css and functions.php files is to create a screenshot. I’m petty sure you don’t want a blank space where the image should be on the WordPress themes page.

The screenshot should have dimensions of 880x660px, either as a .png or.jpg file type.

Also, the screenshot should be named exactly as screenshot.png or screenshot.jpg for WordPress to recognize it.

Once you’ve added your screenshot image, your Child Theme folder should look like this:

Finally, compress the folder to .zip file type and then upload to your WordPress website.

You can upload your Divi Child Theme to your WordPress website the same way you uploaded Divi: Appearance > Themes > Upload, then click Activate!

You should see something that looks like this:

And that’s it! Congrats, you’ve successfully created your own blank Divi Theme child theme.

Editing Template and Other Theme Files of a Divi Child Theme

Thinking about making customizations to the Divi Child Theme files? Well, we are about to get into it.

Actually, the way it works is for any file that is in your child theme that is also in your parent theme, WordPress will use that file instead. The exceptions are the style.css and functions.php files. Both the parent and the child files are used there.

If you want to add any custom functions to your Divi child theme, you just need to write them in your child themes functions.php. But for editing other files, you’ll need to go the extra mile.

Let’s look at it step by step.

For example, you have created a Divi child theme. Now you want to change how 404 page is displayed in the Child Theme. The 404 page page template is located at wp-content/divi/404.php

Step 1: Create a 404.php in your child theme folder. But to ensure it will overwrite the parent theme we have to follow the exact file name & structure.

Step 2: Create a folder and place the file inside that folder. Make sure the path looks exactly like the parent theme.
Parent Theme : divi/404.php
Child Theme : divi-child/404.php

Step 3: Now you can write your own code in the 404.php and it will overwrite parent file.

Using this method you can customize and overwrite any template of parent theme. Make sure file name and folder path are the same.

This may look a little bit tricky for now, but with time, you will get used to it. Continue playing around with it and you will become a child theme editing pro in no time.