Dummies Guide to Google Blogger Beta

Blogger has many templates which you can pick by going to Pick New Template under the Layout tab. At present all templates are two column templates. These have a main posts column and a sidebar at the right or left for your Profile and Archives and other widgets you wish to add.


They can be easily modified to add a third column in three steps. These column are however of unequal height. The height of the column depends on it's content. If you add more content to the sidebar it increases in length and then you have to add more posts so that the Main Column has a matching height. Other templates are available with faux columns to give an impression of equal height.


Here is a template with equal height columns : See picture below :



The columns do not end at their content...........


You can download template here. To download the template right click on the above link and choose 'Save Target As' in Internet Explorer and 'Save Link As' in Firefox browsers. Save the XML template file to your PC.


To load the template :

1. Login at Blogger.com.

2. Click Layout link on Dashboard.

3. Page Elements tab will open.

4. Click Edit Html subtab of Layout tab.

5. Edit HTml tab will open.

6. First Backup your Template. Then backup you widgets. Then click Browse button.

7. Explorer window will open. Navigate to where you hae saved the XML template file and select it and click Open.

8. Click Upload button.

9. You may get warning that "Widgets are about to be deleted!". No need to worry since you have already backed them up in Step 6 above.

10. After new template has loaded sucessfully you can readd your widgets. You can also try the alternative method of loading a template without deleting widgets.