Changing Your Blogger Blog To Three Columns

Okay, I know this is a card art blog, but sometimes you just have to fudge! I have been wanting a 3 column blog for sometime now, and some of you have also told me you were thinking about it too, so I did some hunting and found some great information and some links to share.

I read this article first:
http://bguide.blogspot.com/2008/02/skeleton-of-blogger-template.html
In a nutshell, it really just describes how the blog is set up. It made me a little more comfortable about going into the body to add things.

First and foremost to me was some information about a back up of your blog. It also explained how to do that. I also saved the encrypted codes on my widgets to a WordPerfect file and saved the pictures of the widgets to a Folder in My Pictures. I didn't need to use any of them, but it was a safety precaution I preferrred to have before I started on my journey.

Go to the Edit HTML tab under Layout and there is a Download Full Template on the second line down from the top and I used it to save (download) my template to my computer.

Next I actually fooled around with the instructions in the above article, but couldn't get them to work for me so I looked for another approach and found it here:

http://www.threecolumnblogger.com/2008/09/three-column-minima-layout-version.html

Now when you go to this page you will see on the right hand side of the page, in the 'Sidebar', a list of different templates and clicking on one will tell you what you need to know for your blogger layout template to change it to 3 columns. Mine was Minima Lefty after fooling around with another DIY to 3 columns. I was just Minima in the beginning. It actually took me less than an hour to do it and I could not believe it.

Anyway, I followed the instructions and it was very easy. I was a little spooked at times but reminded myself of these safety tips as I trolled along:

1. I had saved my template to my PC.
2. I can always click on Clear Edits button on the bottom, as long as I don't save anything until I check it out by:
Clicking on the Preview Button on the bottom of the screen.

The thing that was really great about the end result - I could drag my sidebar buttons from the column on the left to the column on the right to reorganize them.

If any of you would like to talk with me about it, EMAIL ME by clicking on the same in the upper left hand sidebar.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and will continue on to a Happy Healthy New Year. Thanks for stopping by 'the blog' to look and share.

 

 Shirley