Title: Understanding Sidebars
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# Understanding Sidebars

 *  [gkeys](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gkeys/)
 * (@gkeys)
 * [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/understanding-sidebars/)
 * Hey all,
 * I am brand new to WordPress and to web design in general. I know nothing about
   coding, so I am finding all the support forums and codex articles to be nothing
   but confusing when I read them on my own. I was hoping for a simpler explanation(
   I hate to sound amateurish, but I need to be realistic here :P) I am trying to
   figure out how to use the sidebars in my theme correctly.
 * Right now I am working with the theme “Fresh News” version 2.52. I am looking
   at my widget menus, and on the right side of the screen there are four choices
   for sidebars: “Sidebar”, “Sidebar Top”, “Sidebar 2-col Left”, and “Sidebar 2-
   col Right”. I have tried moving widgets into each of these just to see what the
   effect is, but I have seen no difference. Sometimes absolutely nothing shows 
   up, and other times the widget I am playing with (the text widget) just gets 
   thrown to the bottom of the page.
 * Can someone please explain to what the differences are between those sidebars
   I listed. My goal is to get a widget on the left side of the webpage where I 
   can keep an updated list of sports scores (I run the website for the high school
   where I work).
 * Thanks in advance!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [nonname](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bipies/)
 * (@bipies)
 * [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/understanding-sidebars/#post-2288024)
 * well, you got it, I mean, you have the concept clear, but you are talking about
   speciffic sidebars for a specifici theme, anyway I thing the one you want is “
   sidebar 2-col Left” (it means 1 sidebar but with two columns inside) so you should
   divide the sidebar width by 2 to use it correctly (if sidebar is , lets say, 
   300px width, but it has 2 columns, and you put an image 300px witdth it will 
   show half, or messed)
 * Hope it helps you somehow 😉
 *  Thread Starter [gkeys](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gkeys/)
 * (@gkeys)
 * [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/understanding-sidebars/#post-2288028)
 * Thanks for the advice!! However, I am unsure how to divide the sidebar width :)
   I am finding that the advice I get is making me ask even more questions lol. 
   I appreciate you answering me so quickly.
 *  [nonname](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bipies/)
 * (@bipies)
 * [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/understanding-sidebars/#post-2288029)
 * I wanted to mean “imagine” not divide, but then you will want to chenge your 
   theme css or whatever else, and then more questions will come, and then you will
   become a real wordpress user with more questions than answers! 😉
 *  [govpatel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/govpatel/)
 * (@govpatel)
 * [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/understanding-sidebars/#post-2288035)
 * > “Sidebar”, “Sidebar Top”, “Sidebar 2-col Left”, and “Sidebar 2-col Right”.
 * Check if you have theme options as you will need to select the corresponding 
   setting in theme options for sidebars you using.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Understanding Sidebars’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [differences](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/differences/)
 * [sidebar](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sidebar/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [govpatel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/govpatel/)
 * Last activity: [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/understanding-sidebars/#post-2288035)
 * Status: not resolved

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