Title: Customize theme
Last modified: April 10, 2019

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# Customize theme

 *  [bbeaucage](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bbeaucage/)
 * (@bbeaucage)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/)
 * Sorry, I’m very new to WordPress and helping someone with an existing site.
 * I want to look at the Customizing the theme, but every time I select the Appearance
   menu item, the web page says ‘Edit widget: Google Analytics Stats’ and I can’t
   get past that.
 * Is this normal behavior? What am I doing wrong?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/#post-11414868)
 * This may be a plugin or theme conflict. Please attempt to disable all plugins,
   and switch to the default Twenty Nineteen theme. If the problem goes away, enable
   them one by one to identify the source of the problem.
 * If you can install plugins, install [Health Check](https://wordpress.org/plugins/health-check/).
   On the troubleshooting tab, you can click the button to disable all plugins and
   change the theme for you, while you’re still logged in, **without affecting normal
   visitors to your site**.
 *  Thread Starter [bbeaucage](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bbeaucage/)
 * (@bbeaucage)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/#post-11415018)
 * Thank you for the reply James.
 * I believe this site is using a very old theme, or a custom one that was created
   5 or 6 years ago. I will speak to the end user and get an idea of how they want
   to approach this.
 * One basic change they want is to update their address in the footer. I can get
   at the underlying footer.php file, is it safe to make the update in there?
 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/#post-11415331)
 * If it’s an old theme, that might be why the Customizer doesn’t work. Is the text
   you want to change in the footer.php file itself?
 *  Thread Starter [bbeaucage](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bbeaucage/)
 * (@bbeaucage)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/#post-11419131)
 * Yes, the text is in the footer.php. I’m assuming I can just change the text in
   there?
 * They also want to change the images in the header, so eventually we need to upgrade
   the theme. But if we can at least update their address in the footer, that will
   be a good start.
 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/#post-11419172)
 * Yes, if that’s all you need to change, and it’s an old theme, changing it directly
   in footer.php should work.
 * In newer themes, you’ll be able to just add widgets to the footer and manage 
   everything inside your Dashboard: [https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-widgets/](https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-widgets/)

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Customize theme’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * Last activity: [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customize-theme-13/#post-11419172)
 * Status: not resolved

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