With some coding, you can easily create static pages in Blogger. For many blog authors, Wordpress is the management system of choice. It provides the most flexibility and options for managing blogs. For those that are not using Wordpress, Blogger is a good, free option. Blogger, however, is not nearly as flexible to use as Wordpress. There are fewer options and templates for that system. The one drawback of using Blogger is the inability of uploading, and using static HTML pages.
There is a simple workaround that you can use to create pages in your Blogger blog that will mimic static pages. I will discuss how to create and use those pages in this post.
Creating Posts as Static Pages
The only option, at the time of this post, to creating static HTML pages in a Blogger blog is by using posts. Now you can easily create an HTML page on another server and then link to it from your blog, but it is much easier to use posts as they will include your template.
When creating the static pages, there are a few things that I would like to point out:
- The static pages should not appear in your RSS feeds to your subscribers. They will not be used as posts, so they shouldn’t be included.
- The date published shouldn’t be included.
- Comments for the page aren’t needed.
I will now show you how to accomplish the above points easily within Blogger. We will be creating a post that will act like a static page on your Blogger blog.
- Start a new post in Blogger.
- Enter the information that you would like displayed on the page in the Blogger editor.
- Once you have entered the content, click the Post Options link.
- Now we will satisfy two of the points above. Below Reader Comments select the Don’t allow option to disable the comments for the page.
- Below Post date and time, enter a date that occurs in the past. For my pages I use June 23, 2007 since that is the first day of Technically Easy. This should prevent the post from being sent to your subscribers as an update.
- When everything is ready to be published, click the Publish Post button.
Now we have a new post that has a past date and doesn’t allow comments. The next steps will prevent the post date from being displayed.
- Click the Layout tab to display your blog’s layout.
- Click the Edit HTML link to display the layout in HTML.
- Check the Expand Widget Templates checkbox to display the Blogger code for each widget.
- Search for the location where the post date is displayed. For blogs that use version 2, search for <data:post.dateHeader/>.
- Before that line include the following:
<b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
- After the post date line include:
</b:if>
This tells Blogger to only display the post date if comments are allowed for the post. Since we disabled comments, the post date won’t be displayed.
Now load up the new page to see if it is displayed as you would like. You can now link to that page from anywhere on your blog, or another Web site.
If you would like to allow comments on your static page, and would also like to prevent the static pages from appearing in the archives, check out Creating Static Pages in Blogger – Part 2.
Summary
Blogger doesn’t have the ability to add static HTML pages to your blog. To mimic static HTML pages, you can simply create a past-dated post and link to it as if it were a static HTML page. This post also showed how you can prevent the post date from being displayed to make it look even more like a static page instead of a post.
Update:
If you are having trouble with the above code, send me your template using the contact form (link above), along with the error and I’ll have a look. Editing templates in Blogger can be difficult since the built-in editor doesn’t help in correcting syntax.
Related Posts
Creating Static Pages in Blogger – Part 2
Grouping Posts By Categories in Blogger
Blog Designing Tips for New Bloggers
What to Avoid When Designing Web Sites
What about “Framed About Me” like mine?
Check http://www.vektanova.com
It works faster and very easy (i mean quite easy).
Using frames is one method of creating static content. I preferred creating a non-framed version.
Yep, Paul. Non-framed version is good, i’d used this way too long ago, but it is annoying my blog archive.
I am a good reader of your blog, and already bookmarked on my internet browser.
Hi Paul
Thanks so much for this great step by step tutorial. Computer wiz I am not… I went through the steps, BUT, I lost the date that precedes all my posts. Is that supposed to be? I thought I would only lose the date for the static page I created since all my other posts allow comments etc. Confused – can you set me straight? Or tell me what I did wrong. Thanks
Technically challenged
Kim
You should if you have only disabled comments for static pages. If you disabled comments for other posts, then that won’t display the date header either.
I recommend you follow the steps outline in http://technicallyeasy.net/2008/07/creating-static-pages-in-blogger-part-2/, since the process outlined in that post doesn’t matter about comments.
If you are still having difficulty, feel free to send me your template and I’ll have a look.
[...] Posts How to Create Static-Like Pages in BloggerCreating Static Pages in Blogger – Part [...]
Thanks for this tutorial!
but unfortunately i cant find data:post.dateHeader in my HTML code, nothing similar either
Vicky
Did you check the “Expand Widget Templates” checkbox?
Thank you for that helpful information. I wanted to suggest another way, which I think is much easier. I created a whole other blog. My site is jrobsguide.com so my privacy policy address is jrobsguideprivacypolicy.blogspot.com. I chose a very simple template. I removed all the extra stuff on the side. I added a link on the side and on the bottom that links back to my home page. I then copied the url and then created a link at the bottom of my main site. It worked well.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
[...] you want to learn more, check out out the following posts at Technically Easy: How to Create Static-Like Pages in Blogger Creating Static Pages in Blogger – Part [...]
Great tip! Thanks.
i followed your instructions on this page:
# Search for the location where the post date is displayed. For blogs that use version 2, search for .
# Before that line include the following:
# After the post date line include:
So let me get this straight: “before that line” I did that, and the date still appears on that page here’s what my code looks like:
I see that putting anywhere causes a parse error, I had it in once and it did not give me an error but did nothing either.
bah! code doesn’t appear in comments… ok… what a useless way to have to start over.
If you would like some help, you can send me your template using the contact form and and explain the issue you are having.