What is: Custom Backgrounds?

Just as you might expect, the term “custom backgrounds” allows you to customize which image or color is used as the background for your WordPress website.

Note: The ability to customize the background depends on which theme you are using!

All themes come built-in with a background even if it’s just the color white. In order to provide users with a more engaging and interactive experience, you can customize the background. From your administration panel in WordPress, click on “Appearance” in the left-hand column and then “Appearance” and “Background.

Depending on what your theme permits, you can choose to change the color of the background or use an image. For images, you may be able to edit, crop, and resize the image or choose whether it is displayed once or tiled (repeated) across the background. When you make the changes that you want, you’ll see them reflected immediately in the live preview.

For developers wanting to include custom background for a theme, you’ll need to add this function to the “functions.php” file according to a strict syntax. For much more developer information on custom backgrounds, head over to this page.