Title: Theme document structure
Last modified: August 30, 2016
---
# Theme document structure
* [Andy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ajmacleod/)
* (@ajmacleod)
* [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-document-structure/)
* _[ Moderator note: [moved to How-to and Troubleshooting](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wheres-my-topic-gone?replies=1&view=all).]_
* Hi!
* I love theming with WordPress. However, I have a question/request about template
document structure…
* It is usual to find open tags in header.php which are subsequently closed in
footer.php. I’m not keen on this. I like each template file to have their closing
tags included too. For example, this is the code from my current theme’s index.
php:
* ```
```
* I realise that the usual approach involves slightly fewer template files compared
to this. However, I’d argue that this approach makes for a much more readable/
user friendly document structure. The outline of the page is complete, and each
template file is a discrete section of code.
* You may be wondering why I didn’t put wp_head() in head.php… I did it because,
from my approach, wp_footer() can’t get into footer.php. I like parity. (Both
header.php and footer.php only include page content that is used on every page).
* I’d like to know how the current practice evolved, and whether anyone else has
my OCD compulsion to close tags in template files.
Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
* Thread Starter [Andy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ajmacleod/)
* (@ajmacleod)
* [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-document-structure/#post-6611756)
* (Not sure why my post was moved here… I’m not looking for help. I wanted to float
the idea of changing the convention in template document structure to see what
others thought about it).
Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
The topic ‘Theme document structure’ is closed to new replies.
## Tags
* [structure](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/structure/)
* [template](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/template/)
* In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
* 1 reply
* 1 participant
* Last reply from: [Andy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ajmacleod/)
* Last activity: [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-document-structure/#post-6611756)
* Status: not resolved
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