Divi Child Theme with Customized Footer Credits

I am currently checking out the Divi WordPress theme by Elegant Themes (affiliate links), and I like it a lot so far. I plan to use for a few client sites and so wanted to make a Divi Child Theme, customized for my clients.  As a WordPress web designer and developer, creating a child theme is fairly standard process if you plan to make more than a few modification to a theme.  If you don’t know about this, you can read more about it here on WordPress.org, or here on the Elegant Themes website.

I looked online for an existing Divi Child Theme but did not find anything that suited my needs, so I made one. Then I decided to share it, so the next person looking for one had mine as an option.

Customized Footer Credits

divi theme default footer
divi theme default footer

All I really wanted was the bare bones of a new child theme, plus the one thing that I felt it really needed – to have the footer customized appropriately for what most users would want in the footer.

  • Most users don’t want an advertisement in the footer that advertises Elegant Themes or WordPress.
  • Most users want a copyright notice for their own website, a copyright notice where the year stays current automatically.  For example, Copyright © 2015 Your Website Name (although in this post the year is not coded to stay current, in the Divi Child Theme it is).
default divi child theme footer (with your site name instead of “Divi Test Site”)

I did some research and it is not legally needed to have this on your website in order to have legal rights and protection for your creative work, but it is a good idea as it does act as deterrent.  I did not include in the copyright notice, “All Rights Reserved” because it just seemed too long and unnecessary.

The footer copyright notice will automatically use the name and website address of your WordPress website.  You can edit the Site Title in your WordPress admin by going to Settings>General.

[box type=”info”]Please note (Jan 2017; Divi version 3.0.27). Divi recently added a new feature to their Theme Customizer (Footer>Bottom Bar) that allows users to now edit or disable the footer credits section of the footer from within the Theme Customizer.  You will NOT be able to use that feature if you use this child theme, (unless you edit the footer.php file). The reason I have kept this child theme with footer credits built into the theme rather than changeable from the theme customizer is that there is still no way that I know to have the year in the copyright notice change each year automatically as the year changes. The child theme here still does that because it creates that content via PHP code. If you do not wish to use the footer in this child theme and would rather use the default Divi footer, it is very easy – just delete the footer.php file in this child theme folder.(You can do that via FTP or via the File Manager in your hosting control panel.)[/box]

Just Upload and Use

You don’t have to modify it all and can just download the zip file and upload it as a theme via your WordPress admin’s Theme panel.  As long as you have the Divi theme also installed, you are good to go.

Or Customize for Your Needs

However there is a ReadMe file included in the child theme folder that explains how to customize it for your own use, such as to make the child theme’s name and Theme image and url location all correspond to your website name rather than just say something like, Divi Child Theme.

How to Get the Default Divi Footer Back

If you decide at any time that you want to be able to edit or disable the child theme’s footer credits from within the Theme Customizer, and no longer have it automatically generated for you by the child theme, look in your themes footer.php file for a section of code that starts with “<p id=”footer-info”>” and ends with “</p>” which is all on line 46 if you have a code editor that shows you lines. You would replace that with line 36 of the Divi themes footer.php file which reads: “echo et_get_footer_credits();”, without the “quotes”.

For Theme Developers

divi child theme footer
divi child theme footer customized in code

I also made it so that it includes a credit for a website’s designer or developer that would read, “Website by Your Name” where Your Name is a link that you specify, such as to your website.  For this you will have to edit the footer.php file and edit those parts in the code.  It is not hard and is explained in the README file.

Click the link below to download the Divi Child Theme from Github.  (You can also view the Divi Child Theme files on Github.)

[button link=”https://github.com/napa-web-designer/divi-child-theme/archive/master.zip?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=relevant&utm_campaign=divi-child-download” size=”large” style=”download” window=”yes”]Download Divi Child Theme[/button]

Good luck.  Let me know if you found this useful.  Share your feedback below.

106 thoughts on “Divi Child Theme with Customized Footer Credits”

  1. I was searching for mobile menu changes in Divi and then found you David. You made so easy. This is my first Child Theme ever. I know how important it is when comes to theme updates. All coding would be gone, but not with Child Theme. It was easy installation and everything that I have done with DIVI theme so far is in there. No errors. Now is Activated and time to “play” with a child instead.

  2. Hi David Eeek Help Help she cried…..
    I installed your child theme and the following popped up on my screen. Duh! Now what….. Oh and I went to appearance>menus and can’t figure that out.
    gument #3 is not an array in annularcutters.co.nz/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 1159

    Warning: array_diff(): Argument #2 is not an array in annularcutters.co.nz/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 1160

    Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in annularcutters.co.nz/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 1162

    Warning: array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array in annularcutters.co.nz/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 1170

    Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at annularcutters.co.nz/wp-includes/widgets.php:1159) in annularcutters.co.nz/wp-admin/includes/misc.php on line 1114

    1. Hi Dale,

      You do not want to include the part of error messages that includes the pathway before your url as it exposes information about your server.

      I am not sure what that error is but I have never seen it before with this child theme and it seems to be happening with others as well but not with this theme – so I suspect is related to something else. I would read some of these and related. You can toggle back to Activating the Divi theme and seeing if the errors go away, and then back to the Child Theme. There is nothing that I can think of in that child theme that could cause that.

      1. Thank you David. I refreshed everything and the errors are not longer showing and having checked through the pages I am developing I cannot see where this is having an adverse effect anywhere. Once I have the thing up and running I will go back to elegant themes to check any problems their end. I really appreciate your help and will take a look at the info you have directed me to. Oops didn’t realise I was not supposed to include the stuff before the url but too late now I guess as I cannot take it out.

  3. Hello, I am a very beginner of Word Press, so your website is very helpful. but let me ask one question! I am trying to change footer credential to my website name, however I use a “child-theme”. In child-theme folder, there are only function.php and style.css , and there are no footer.php file… Please could you advise me on where is footer.php and how to change code? Thank you so much

    1. Since you asked this question in the comments of a post about the Divi theme, I will say that if you are using the Divi theme, there is an option in the Customer, near the bottom of the options, I think it says Footer or something like that, where you can change what is in the footer. As for child themes for other themes, if it is possible to change without code, then look there also.

      1. Thanks for the comments, but you mentioned that “You will NOT be able to use that feature if you use this child theme, (unless you edit the footer.php file).” so I am looking for a footer.php file. however, there are no footer.php file in my files so i cannnot edit.

      2. You can also just delete the footer.php file if you do not want the footer to work as described in this post and still use the Child theme otherwise.

        The footer.php file is one of the files in your theme folder. You can see it via FTP or in your admin area go to Appearance>Editor and look in the sidebar for that file when you have the Child theme active. click on it and edit as you like.

  4. Hi David

    This looks brilliant. I have already installed a Divi Barebones theme and do not know how to use it effectively or to be honest “at all” . How would I replace that one with yours which looks the better option for me.

    Thanks

    Dale

  5. Hi David,

    Thanks for sharing! I have one question. I implemented the childtheme and changed the footer in the website. This one is in English and German. But now in the footer, my companyname (Banenbranderij) and the name of the website (Lebe Deine Passion) is translated in English and German. How do I change this? I cannot find this in the footer.php.

  6. Hi I’m considering getting Divi to develop a site for a friend, and hoping I might be able to pick up a few other projects by word of mouth here and there…

    Anyway I just wanted to know – why would a child theme be needed for Divi?
    My understanding is that a child theme is only required if making changes to the underlying code for a theme (css or html usually) ?

    Aside from the footer example you provide in this child theme, is there any need to do so?
    Based on the videos I’ve seen and the elegant themes site info – it appears that Divi can do all sorts of things and that in fact it is designed so as to AVOID the need for coding (as was previously generally required to create a highly customised website look)?

    Just trying to get my head around this before shelling out my hard earned $

    Thanks

    1. Hi Michael,

      That is a very reasonable question. If that is the case, that you would not make any changes outside the theme’s customization options, then as far as I can think, you should be fine not to use a Child theme. And even if you had just a few changes, I believe there is a CSS section in the theme settings you can use.

      So why a child theme? Because as you delve in, you may find that you cannot customize the site exactly as you want and you may want to use CSS or add a rule the functions.php file or maybe you want a theme name for a client that is their name and not Divi. These are a few reasons that a child theme is used. It gives you those options.

  7. Hi David, is this download still available and up to-date? I noticed the comments are from 2015 and I’m considering using the Divi theme but don’t want to create a Child Theme so would love to use you ready-made one if possible! Many thanks

    1. Yes, the child theme still works with the current version of Divi. As stated in the white Notice box, you will be limited in what you do via the Divi admin area with the footer, but the child theme footer has its advantage as well. And I just added a sentence to that note pointing out that if you want to use the Divi theme footer features, you can just remove the footer.php file from the child theme folder.

      I really like Divi. If you have questions, let me know. I wrote a blog post sharing my love of it. And if you do buy it and feel like giving back to me, go to that post and click on Divi from there as it will link to my affiliate account and give me a few $$. Everything helps. Good luck Angela.

  8. Hi David,
    Thanks so much for sharing this. I am new to development and am trying to understand child themes. I have uploaded the child theme file and also changed the footer php as you suggested to get the Divi footer credits back. This negated the custom credits you had added, but did not bring back the footer credits that I have entered in the Divi theme customizer. There is now no bottom footer panel. (I copied and pasted the new php from your instructions above.)
    Also, I have custom CSS in the Divi theme options custom CSS area, and also other custom CSS in modules themselves. The CSS from the theme options area seems to have transferred over to the child theme custom CSS. Do I need to copy and paste all CSS that exists in the modules themselves to the child theme CSS – is this CSS also at risk with updates?
    When updating Divi, I assume you have to activate the Divi theme temporarily?
    Sorry, I am very new to this and finding child themes confusing.
    Thank you,
    Dawn

    1. Hi Dawn,

      Good questions.

      To get the default Divi footer back you can actually just delete the footer.php file from the child theme folder (either FTP or via a Hosting Control Panel File Manager). That will cause the default Divi footer.php file to take over.

      As for the custom CSS in the Divi Theme options, you said that it DID transfer over, so you should be good to go. But if changing to the child theme loses those custom CSS rules, then you would have to then re-activate the Divi theme and copy them and then re-activate the child theme and past them in. Most of the custom settings should stay intact though – in the Divi Theme options and Theme Customizer, I think, it has been a while since I settings set in Divi and then changed to a child theme.

      The one thing I typically see when changing from a theme to a child theme is that in Appearance>Menus you have to re-assign the Menu Area after which the menus appear properly.

      When you are updating new versions of Divi you do not need to activet eh Divi theme to do so. You just update the Divi theme and that is it, it should not affect any of your settings.

      So once you get the child theme working as you like, just update Divi like you do any plugin or theme but leave the child theme always the live theme.

      And no sweat on the questions, it is all very confusing.

      1. Hi David,
        Just getting back to working on this. The deletion of the footer.php file worked so now I have my footer back. However, the css is not overriding the divi theme css for some reason. When I test changes, nothing is taking. The child theme is activated, folder/files look OK in cpanel. I have temporarily disabled WP rocket to prevent it caching. Any suggestions as to what I might be overlooking?
        Thank you,
        Dawn

      2. Hard to give you feedback on that without knowing more details. If you want to schedule half an hour support with me, we can screen share and I should be able to help you out. Use my contact form to let me know when you can connect. I am in California so Pacific Coast Time.

    1. Hi Nirmal,

      Not sure if I understand clearly your request but if what you are wanting is for the footer to stay at the bottom of the page at all times, then you would use CSS on the Footer: position: fixed; bottom:0;. You might have to tweak it further but that is the core piece. Is that what you were asking?

  9. Hi

    Thanks for making this available. Quick question, when i activate the theme, my custom css in Divi->Theme Options->General->Custom CSS and some script i placed in the Divi->Theme Options-Integration->Header sections are not applying. The text is still showing in those sections but they seem to be ignored. Is this what you would expect? Is this there somewhere else i need to place this stuff now? Sorry if its a stupid question 🙂

    1. Sorry, please ignore this question. I was looking at a half width browser window and it was only ignoring my code because it wasn’t full width. Enlarged window and my question no longer applies 🙂

    1. This is a very good question. The child theme here did use the @import method, yet I have thought about updating it to use the enqueque method. So, prompted by your question, I just did. However please note that this child theme does override the new built in Divi Theme Customizer feature that allows you to edit or disable your footer credits. Reasons are in the README file under the title, Please Note. And I will edit this page as well soon.

      1. In function file you write this;

        // Import parent CSS – Faster than @import.
        add_action( ‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘divi_child_theme_css’ );
        function divi_child_theme_css() {
        wp_enqueue_style( ‘parent-theme-css’, get_template_directory_uri() . ‘/style.css’ );
        }

        is this perfect? or does it depends on the name of the main theme and child theme folders i create inside my content–> theme folder?

      2. Once again you had me back reviewing and improving my code. I have been using the method of enqueue for a year now and it actually works fine. However after reviewing the WordPress codex for creating a child theme, I see they have improved upon what was there when I last spent time with it. I have updated the theme’s function.php to reflect the new changes. I tested it out and it works fine, as did the old version, however this new version appends the child theme’s version number to the stylesheet when I view in Chrome Developer tools. That is good.

        To answer your specific questions, I have seen this code work without specifying the parent theme handle but I looked at the Divi theme and used its handle anyways in the code. I saw nowhere in what I read that it depends on the name of the child theme folder. Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

  10. Hey David, thanks for the download.

    Also just an FYI your footer link on this page is broken.

    http://http//studioihsan.com/dbt you forgot your colon before the // so its automagically adding in the HTTP:// for you. See I feel happy now because I was able to give back.

    Gerald

  11. Hi David,
    Like a few of the commenters here, I am quite new to the Divi community. I found out about the need to create child themes only much later after I have made a lot of customization to the original Divi. But I went ahead and created a Divi-child theme thru One Click Child theme creator. So I activated the Divi-child but each time I continue to update my Divi-child, the changes are also reflected in the original Divi.
    How to I prevent this from happening? Do I need to reinstall the original Divi and start anew? But then I would lose almost 5 months of work.
    The reason I need to have this “fixed” is because I am trying to create another child theme for a potential client. I also got Aspen Roots just in case. But I think the changes I made with the original Divi will somehow affect the creation of a child theme.
    David, thanks for any help you can share. You have been very generous with your wisdom in this field and I hope that I will be benefited with some assistance the same.

    1. Its hard to help you Charles because what you are saying sounds mixed up – and I had never heard of one click child theme until now.

      I do not know what this means, “So I activated the Divi-child but each time I continue to update my Divi-child, the changes are also reflected in the original Divi.” How it is supposed to work is that you have a child theme so that when up update Divi (the parent theme) that any customizations you made in the child theme are not lost in the update of Divi – because your changes are made to the child theme, not Divi. What you wrote talked about updating the child theme and this someone “reflected” in the original Divi.

      I am happy to comment on easy to answer questions in my comments but this is a bit more complicated. For this I would likely ask you to contact me for a consult. Half an hour of talking would likely clear it up for you I would think. You can email me for a time or try me on the phone 707-965-9727 between 10am-5pm PCT Mon-Fri.

  12. thanks for this child theme, very useful !! can’t do without it when playing with Divi, actually…

  13. David, thanks for providing this child theme and saving us the work of making it! Also your willingness to answer questions. I’ve been using WordPress for a while and have made child themes, but am new to Diivi, so there’s a lot to learn there. Now to change the text properties of the footer. Have been unsuccessful so far using the Footer section of the Theme Customizer. Will dig deeper.
    Thanks again.

    1. I edited this response because I originally thought you could not, but now can customize the bottom footer area using the Divi Theme Customizer at Footer>Bottom Bar.

      1. Thanks for this. I have to update the footer.php everytime I update the Divi theme and that seems quite often. Now I can do it once and done.

      2. Hi David ,I just purchased the Divi package .Can i download and install the child them as per your earlier instruction ?
        I see that your child theme is made last year .Do I need to be aware of anything ?
        Best
        Jan

      3. Hi Jan,

        My wife is from New Zealand, Gisborne.

        I just checked the new Divi theme footer (divi version 2.7.5) and compared it to the child theme I created and there is nothing new. So this child theme is still good to work for you. The only thing of note is that the word “Copyright” is not coded to be translated into another language if you have a multilingual site.

      1. Yes, using wp_enqueue_scripts is preferred do to the fact that it loads the style sheet slightly faster. I have not updated it for that yet. Will do one of these days soon.

        I made no modifications to the footer that would make it incompatible in Chrome unless there is a new version of Chrome that also makes the footer in the Divi theme incompatible. The changes I made were minor html changes. If there is a problem, try using the theme without your wp_enqueue_scripts modification and see if it works that way. If so, then perhaps there is some error in your implementation of wp_enqueue_scripts?

        I am running Chrome Version 51.0.2704.63 (64-bit) on my Mac and I looked at one install with this child theme and see no problems.

  14. Hello! I am really struggling to edit the child theme…I edited the footer file and uploaded it totally fine. However, now when I go into customiser to start making my site (starting with editing the header and footer) it looks totally different to how it did in Divi. The site isn’t live and I can’t upload screenshots here but with this child theme activated, the font is different (even with the same settings) the logo is in the middle of the screen, below the menu bar and it looks a mess! Can you help? 🙂

    1. Hi Lottie,

      I can help but not for free. That is what I do for a living. You are welcome to contact me by phone or via my website contact form for help if you like.

      The child theme would not make any changes to your header and the Theme Customizer should work fine with the child theme.

  15. Thank you so much! I know so little about web design, but this was so easy and resolved my footer issue instantly. Again thank you for making my life so much easier!

  16. Thanks! It’s insane that the Divi theme doesn’t let you easily customize the footer. That’s such an essential, basic thing that every single person would want to do. What were they thinking?

  17. Hello David,

    I downloaded your customized child theme but couldn’t properly edit it. I am a web designer (Although new) and couldn’t figure out exactly, how to add web “Site Design by My Company Name” and name with copyright and name of the website I am designing.

    When I use your child theme it automatically gives me copyright year and name of the website (Which is great, but I couldn’t figure out in your read me how to put site design by me text).

    Can you reply with exactly how to do this in line 46? Or feel free to email me directly. I also didn’t understand this “To add a credit to yourself as the designer or developer of the website, you just need to un-comment the commented out code on line 46 before the closing paragraph tag; and edit / customize that part within the comments with your own link title tag, your own URL and your own link text.”

    Sorry, I am really not that knowledgeable about editing php files yet, I am still learning. So please excuse me for my ignorance and thank you for your contribution to Divi, even though they should really allow us to edit it Copyright footer info in the theme customizer.

    Thanks and I look forward to your reply,
    Isiah.

    1. Hi Isiah,

      First off, the edits I shared with you are not php but HTML. I will point you to what you need to learn as a web designer and with that knowledge you should understand how to edit this.

      First you need to know how HTML comments work. And also how links are formatted. That should give you enough to figure it out. If not, try a code editor that color codes what you are looking at in HTML to help differentiate the active code from the comments from the text inside the code, etc. You could download Brackets which is free and is my current favorite. Good luck.

      1. As an absolute newbie ‘not even a real web designer’ kinda kid, I thank you a) for creating this child theme and b) for providing the links above, introducing me to HTML comments and links. Using the info I read there, I successfully managed to personalise the ‘Designed by’ section and I even managed to remove the emphasis tags, as I prefer the non-italicised look. Thanks so much David for having the patience to guide us in the right direction.

      2. Hi Shannon,

        Thanks for taking the time to reflect back that my time in sharing this was worth it in helping you. I also eventually removed the em tags. And thinking about how those em tags might affect others, for anyone who does not like that look, an alternate way to make it not italics because of those em tags is to use CSS:

        #footer-info em {font-style: normal;}

  18. Hi David

    I installd youre child theme and it worked very well but it changed my menu? How do i reset the menu to my former menu?

    Best regards
    Erica from Sweden

    1. When you change themes you need to go to Appearance>Menus assign a menu to your themes menu locations. That is because each theme has its own menu locations. The Menu structure you created should still be there for the menus you created so this step should only take a minute.

  19. Hi,

    I downloaded this but when I input my css customizations (previously it was in the ET panel), the css is not updating/overriding. Any ideas? Thanks!

    1. Hard to say why. It could be so many things. I would start by using Chrome Developer tools or some other means of checking to see if your custom styles are showing up. For example it could be that your styles have less priority than the default ones and although they are there that they are not affecting the site. Or it could be that there is something wrong with the CSS file in how it is formatted so that they are not showing. So you have start by checking to see if the file is uploaded (go the url of where the style sheet is and see if it loads in your browser, and so on.

      If that all sounds beyond you and you would rather pay someone $50-$100 to get it working, then you could pay someone like myself to look into it.

      Good luck,

  20. I followed your instructions to credit myself for developing the website, but it’s just not showing up. I removed the comment tags and added my own information, but I don’t see it. I would appreciate it if you could explain what I’m doing wrong. Here is my code:

    Copyright © <a href="” rel=”home”> | Website by Web Studio 180

    Thank you!

  21. David,
    I set up multisite and launched a few Divi sites before I knew about child themes. If I apply your child theme to my sites will I lose all the customization I did? Or, is there a way to make a child theme out of sites I’ve already customized in the parent (Divi) theme?
    Any help is appreciated,
    Ed

    1. Hi Ed,

      It depends on how you made your customizations. The customizations that you made through your WordPress admin area to the Divi theme customization settings should be retained. If you made customizations to the theme files, those would be lost. In that case you would want to transfer those files that you changed to the corresponding location for your child theme.

      One thing that I can think of that will need to be done is that you will need to go to Appearance>Menus to Manage Locations and re-assign the location of your menus there as that is one thing that does not translate when you change themes, the actual content of your menus will be retained, so it is a quick fix.

      That is what I expect but I would test it out as I have not tested my assumptions thoroughly. You should be able to revert back to a theme that you changed it from and have it be exactly as it was when you changed. So you should be able to change to the child theme, then back to Divi if need be for a bit to review how it was.

      Please respond back here when you make your change so others can benefit from your experience. Good luck!

  22. For the luv of humanity, I just want to change the size of my logo. Not working in divi booster and child theme (as suggested) isn’t working either. What am I doing wrong?

    1. The Divi theme cannot “change the size of your logo”. The divi theme (or child theme) will adjust the logo that you upload to fit into a specified height and width. You can change that specified height in the Theme Customizer>Header& Navigation>Primary Menu>Menu/Logo height. If the logo you uploaded is large enough it will enlarge to fit that space. If your logo is not that big to begin with, it will not. You have to upload a logo large enough to fit the space you want.

      You can also change the size of your logo for when a user scrolls down if you have your site to use the feature that changes the header size when user scrolls. You adjust the height for that at Theme Customizer>Header& Navigation>Fixed Navigation Settings>Fixed Menu/Logo Height.

  23. Hi,

    I just downloaded the child theme and will be uploading it now. I got it because I simply needed to change the size of my logo in the header section and someone in the Divi group said I needed a child theme to do so. Question: once I upload the zip file what do I need to do from there?

    1. That is not correct that you need a child theme to change the size of your logo. The benefit of a child theme is that you can make theme customizations in the code and have them retained when the Divi theme comes out with updates.

      You add the theme zip file from the admin at Appearance>Themes and then when the zip file is uploaded you “Activate it”. You have to have Divi also installed on the same WordPress site, but it will be shown as inactive because your child theme will be active, although most the files for your child theme will be pulled from the actual Divi theme. That is how a child theme works.

  24. Pefect!

    I just download your child-theme and even with the Divi 2.4.6.2 version, it’s perfectly working. That is just great! I am new to WordPress and I don’t know how to code, people like you should get rewards!
    By the way, if I change colors, headers font, logo size etc. directly in the dashboard with the child theme activated, would it risk to be affected next time I upgrade the theme?
    If so, will I have to code; i.e. call a developer ^^!

    Thanks David!

    1. Your question is spot on and the answer is that none of your child theme customizations should be affected when you update the Dvi theme. That is exactly why people use a child theme, so they can customize their theme and not lose any of their customizations when the parent theme, in this case Divi, is updated.

      As for people like me getting rewards, feel free to share you appreciation via a comment/ review on Yelp or Google Plus at one of the links below. And good luck with your website. (You will need to have an account Yelp or Google to leave a review.)

      Yelp:  http://www.yelp.com/biz/designs-by-tierney-pope-valley

      Google Plus:  https://plus.google.com/+DesignsbyTierneyPopeValley/about

  25. Thanks for your suggestion above regarding custom menus.

    I had tried to create a child theme manually and it seemed to mess everything up, so I went back to the original. But when I updated today I obviously lost my custom footer.

    So I did a search for “divi child theme” and found your link. But when I installed your child theme I had the same problem as I did with mine.

    But then I noticed what you said about custom menus, and sure enough making a simple test menu returned the site to normal.

    But it turns out that I did not have to re-make my original menu. I just need to re assign it as the primary AFTER activating the child theme. Now everything is golden.

    Thanks for you wisdom.

  26. Hi David,

    I want to thank you for giving this document, I was was not sure if was doing right, but I think is working fine for me, so far so good :-). I was thinking for a while to use child theme because I know if I update Divi my css is going to be lost for ever, so Child theme is the only solution.
    I´m afraid I don´t remember if I did changes on other php files. I hope so not anyway the css and the footer php are my file changes so right now I have what I need.

    Thanks a lot

    Have a wonderful day
    Best Regards
    Cecilia

  27. David, thanks for posting this, I used it and it is working great!
    My question is if we need to edit the functions.php file to add a hook or something, how would we properly do this, as the child theme doesn’t contain a functions.php file.
    Thanks for your help!

  28. FYI – I updated the child theme on April 13th due to an error in the code. A simple error, easy to fix and if you look at the end of this post, just after the large download button, there are instructions to repair it. This would only be needed if you downloaded the file before that date.

  29. Hi David, I am a non tech person with basic WP knowledge (no html or CSS) and for this reason I purchased the Divi Theme. I really like the simplicity and flexibility of page layouts but want my name and copyright credits on the footer. I would like to use your Divi Child Theme and would be grateful if you could answer a couple of questions so I don’t mess it up.

    Once I install your Divi Child theme do I have to active it and deactivate the original that I’ve been working on? If so, would I lose the work I’ve already done so far? Many thanks for reading and I look forward to your reply.

    Maxine

    1. Hi Maxine,

      You can add the theme and not activate it and that would not change anything you have done thus far. In order to use it, you would need to activate it. When you have activated the new child theme, the divi theme would be automatically deactivated. WordPress will only allow one theme to be activated at a time. When you activate the chid theme, WordPress will look for the Divi theme to be installed in order for the child theme to work.

      You would always have to have the divi theme also installed for the child theme to work – but you would have the child theme activated. This mostly helps when there are updates to the Divi theme, that they do not overwrite any custom changes you may have made to the code of your theme. If you only plan to make changes via the admin area then you may not need a child theme.

      I have not tested out exactly what you are asking about – activating the child theme after having made changes to the site. What I would expect is that any changes that you made via Appearance > Divi Theme Options would likely be lost when you activated the child theme, and also if you activated a custom menu via Appearance > Menus. I suspect you would have to re-do those. A suggestion I would have on that is to take screenshots of the different setting pages so you have easy reference when re-setting them.

      As for the content of your actual pages, I would expect that they would still be intact as they were with the Divi theme activated – but I have not tested it out as such. However I would expect that if you activated the child theme and they were not, that you could switch back to activate the divi theme again and it should all be as you left it.

      These specifics would likely be best answered via the forums for the Divi theme specifically. I bet you would find someone there who would know this either from experience or as a developer with Elegant Themes.

      I would love to know how it turns out if you would be willing to share back here after you make the change. Good luck Maxine.

  30. Hello David,

    Thanks a lot for your share. That was exactly what I was looking for.
    But I have some problems . I have dowload the file and install it but WP don’t find it !!
    see what I have : The archive could not be installed. Found no valid extension.
    Can you help me.
    Best regards.

    1. I am not sure why you would get that. I just tested it out on a fresh WP install and it activated properly. Do you have the Divi theme installed already – you should, otherwise this theme would not work. Did you upload the zip file as it was? Did you modify it? If you were to upload this file as is and had the Divi theme already installed, it should install properly.

      FYI – FOR ANYONE WHO HAS INSTALLED THIS CHILD THEME, I realized that I had improperly commented some text in the footer.php file lines 1-5 and made those changes to the theme. You could either download again and install again, or if you made any change to your theme in the admin, you could just look at the changes in the footer.php file at the top and make those to your site so that what is intended to be a comment does not show on your site.

      1. Hello David,

        Thank you for your reply !
        Divi is installed and my website finished. I downloaded it as I usually do with the zip files.
        I tried again now but it still doesn’t work .
        Do you think this may be because I am in France and my admin is in French. I don’t think but why all the plugin I have download (15) work and not this one.

      2. I do not know. I am not familiar with anything that would cause an issue because your install is in French. I imagine that if you downloaded and installed 15 themes in the past that some were just like this one. It is a zip file with the basic requirements included, as long as Divi is installed, which you say it is. You could try a google search with WordPress and the exact phrase of the error message and see if you find some clue.

  31. Thank you so much for this post! I concur with Donovan, “Exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.”

    Thanks a million!

  32. David,

    Thank you very much for posting this! Exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.

    Much appreciated,

    Donovan

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