Title: Difference between content-page.php and page.php
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Difference between content-page.php and page.php

 *  Resolved [janneval](https://wordpress.org/support/users/janneval/)
 * (@janneval)
 * [11 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difference-between-content-pagephp-and-pagephp/)
 * Hi!
 * I would like to know what is the difference between following template files 
   in Underscores starter theme (underscores.me)?
 * – content.php – single.php
    – content-page.php – page.php – content-search.php–
   search.php – content-none – 404.php
 * I’m building my theme on Underscores and I would love to through out ALL the 
   unnecessary files. I want to have just few different views:
    1) Single view where
   the whole post/page is shown 2) Catergory/archive view with list of post excerpts(
   front page is also like this) 3) 404 not found view 4) search result view
 * I would like to have just two template files where one makes one single post/
   page view and another the excerpt list view.. I’m sure there is reason behind
   but I just cannot understand why there is so many template files… Anyone can 
   tell me? I cannot find for example content-page.php from [the template hierarchy](http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy).
   I tried to read it true but it didn’t help.
 * So my question is: **What is meaning of those files (content-page.php, content-
   page.php, content-search.php, content-none.php) and which all files can I remove
   so that my simple site still works nice and smooth? **

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Michael](https://wordpress.org/support/users/alchymyth/)
 * (@alchymyth)
 * [11 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difference-between-content-pagephp-and-pagephp/#post-5112619)
 * all those **content-{???}.php** template files might get called by some templates,
   possibly via a `get_template_part( 'content', '?????' )` code; in which case,
   you cannot delete them.
 * check the codes of page.php, search.php, index.php etc…
 * [http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_template_part](http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_template_part)
 *  Thread Starter [janneval](https://wordpress.org/support/users/janneval/)
 * (@janneval)
 * [11 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difference-between-content-pagephp-and-pagephp/#post-5112724)
 * Yeah.. thats what I tried to do, look though the code, but then I tired of it
   and found a better way: I simply deleted one by one plenty of those files which
   I didn’t understand. :))
 * Before doing it I added to the beginning of each file something like `<strong
   >echo 'This is index.php.';</strong>` where index.php was replaced by the name
   of that file where I added it. Then I could see from my site exactly which template
   files where called in different cases.. (Front page, archives, single post view
   etc..)
 * WordPress is really a smart thing! If it has no one file, it replaces it with
   another. For example normally to load a view of a single page, it used following
   files:
    **functions.php, page.php, header.php, content-page.php, sidebar.php 
   and footer.php.
 * But if I remove page.php, it uses more general index.php to replace it. And if
   I remove content-page.php, it uses more general content.php on it’s place. So
   I CAN remove them, no harm!
 * Only thing removing these files make is that without them I cannot specify for
   example that content of the page is shown in different way than the content of
   a post. Now all content is shown in the same way. But that’s ok for me! I can
   always add them again if needed or add CSS that makes difference between a page
   and a post.
 * Thank you alchymyth for a good option. I’m sure I could have found it out that
   way too. This way was just faster.
 * And thank me for a nice solution. Topic resolved. 🙂

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Difference between content-page.php and page.php’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [content php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/content-php/)
 * [content-single.php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/content-single-php/)
 * [underscores](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/underscores/)

 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [janneval](https://wordpress.org/support/users/janneval/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difference-between-content-pagephp-and-pagephp/#post-5112724)
 * Status: resolved

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