Title: Help using body_class() Last modified: August 22, 2016 --- # Help using body_class() * Resolved [derpaa](https://wordpress.org/support/users/derpaa/) * (@derpaa) * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-using-body_class/) * Hi, I am trying my hand at making my first custom page template and I am new to php. My understanding is that I can use the body_class function to change the background image and color of the overall page for this specific template, but I am having trouble using it. * I put > as the body tag in the header.php file, but I don’t understand where and how in the TEMPLATE file I set which body class it should use, or how that gets passed to the header file. * The tutorials I’m reading say that you pass your custom class as a function argument to body_class(), as in: * > But this doesn’t seem like it would work since the header file is for EVERY page. Can I set the body class id in the template and get it to pass to the header’s body tag somehow, or how do you do this? * Thank you for any assistance you can provide! Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total) * [stephencottontail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stephencottontail/) * (@stephencottontail) * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-using-body_class/#post-5736548) * It isn’t technically required to pass an argument to `body_class()` for this purpose. When you use custom page template “foo.php”, you’ll have a class named` page-template-foo-php` on your `` tag, which you can target with CSS normally: * `body.page-template-foo-php { background: url(path/to/image); }` * Thread Starter [derpaa](https://wordpress.org/support/users/derpaa/) * (@derpaa) * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-using-body_class/#post-5736552) * Ahhh, thank you very much! Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total) The topic ‘Help using body_class()’ is closed to new replies. ## Tags * [body_class](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/body_class/) * [page template](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/page-template/) * 2 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [derpaa](https://wordpress.org/support/users/derpaa/) * Last activity: [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-using-body_class/#post-5736552) * Status: resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics