Whatever theme you choose for WordPress, you’ll probably end up with one Page Template and one Sidebar Template. For most sites, this will probably be sufficient. But if you need more templates, it’s not difficult to add.

Page Templates

WordPress page templates are so incredibly easy to add, you’ll probably laugh.

1) Create a page in your favorite coding software. Add this to the beginning of it:

<?php
/*
Template Name: One Column
*/
>

Keep in mind that whatever name you call it will have the added ending “Page Template”. So while the template name above is “One Column”, WordPress will call it “One Column Page Template”.

The best way is to simply copy the Page Template, and add that coding to the top. That way you’ve already got the WordPress loops included and can modify as you want.

2) Upload the file to:

/wp-content/themes/ActiveTheme/NewTemplateName.php

Sidebar Templates

Sidebar templates are little bit different.

1) Create a page; again, I recommend copying the current sidebar.php page. When you name this one, use the following setup:

sidebar-newName.php

2) Upload this under the same area as the last one:
/wp-content/themes/ActiveTheme/NewTemplateName.php[/tml]
3) Now, when you call a different sidebar in your newly created additional template, you’ll call it like this:

<?php get_sidebar('newName'); ?>

instead of the standard get_sidebar();

Summary

I’m constantly being surprised by the capabilities that WordPress has. It can’t do everything, but it can do a heck of a lot.