#modify theme

No built-in gadgets or widgets on Tumblr

Other blogging platforms, like Google Blogger, make it really easy and quick to add text to your blog’s sidebar and footer. In the case of Google Blogger, all you need to do is add the Text gadget to your sidebar or footer and configure the settings of said gadget to input whatever text you want.

Unfortunately, Tumblr doesn’t have gadgets or widgets. So wanting text on your blog isn’t as simple or as easy as clicking something and adding it to your site’s footer or sidebar and then typing the text that you want to input. Well, unless your chosen Tumblr theme comes with this feature anyway.

Customizing and modifying your Tumblr blog’s theme

If it doesn’t and you really want to add some text on your blog’s sidebar or footer, you’ll have to tinker with the HTML codes of your Tumblr theme and modify and customize it to your liking.

The first step is to go to the theme options page of your Tumblr blog’s theme. Once there, just click on the “Edit HTML” link on the left side of the page and you’ll be taken to the HTML editor.

Here, you’ll have to look for the HTML codes that correspond with the footer or sidebar section of your blog and that’s where you can add the text that you want. This will usually be named something that has to do with the sidebar or footer, but the exact names of the class or ID depends on which theme you’re using.

Once you find the aforementioned codes, you can start adding the text you want as well as your chosen style or design. This depends on how you want this section of your blog to look like so the HTML and CSS can differ per person.

For example, if you want a paragraph, you’ll need the <p></p> code. If you want to insert a break or space in your text, you need to use the <br> code. You can also decide the font-size of your text as well as the font-family. You can even choose to bold it or italicize it.    

It can look something like this:

<div id="footer" style="font-weight:bold; font-size:14px; font-family:Arial;"> <p>Insert your text here</p> <br> <p>Insert more text here</p> </div>

After adding your chosen text, click on the “Update preview” button to see the changes you’ve made. If everything looks right and to your liking, save the changes you’ve made before exiting out of the HTML editor.  

Tumblr Themes with this feature

Don’t want to do it yourself? Here are examples of some Tumblr themes that allow you to easily and quickly add text to your blog’s sidebar and/or footer.

Fiorella Tumblr Theme:

The sidebar comes with a tagline feature, which allows you to put text right below your blog title as well as a text widget feature as you can see in the screenshot below:

The theme comes with a 2-column footer where you can put any text you want as well as polls, codes, ads, javascript and more.

Adding text to your sidebar and footer using the Fiorella theme is as easy as going to the theme options page of your blog and typing whatever you want to show or display. Just look for the entry which corresponds to the feature you want to use. 

For example, to customize your footer, just look for the text with the names, “Footer Col 1 Heading,” “Footer Col 1 Content,” etc.

Verde Frühling Tumblr Theme:

This theme doesn’t come with a sidebar, but you can still add text on your blog’s header as well as footer.

The theme’s footer section comes with 2 columns:

Rustelia Tumblr Theme:

The Rustelia theme comes with a 2-column footer:

Sol Aki Tumblr Theme:

The Sol Aki theme doesn’t have a footer text widget. However, it does have a sidebar and header widget.

Mystic Summer Tumblr Theme:

Mystic Summer also comes with a three-column footer:

Weiss Zima Tumblr Theme:

Weiss Zima doesn’t have a footer text widget, but it does have a sidebar text widget as you can see below:

The rest of the themes mentioned here are just like Fiorella. You can easily add text to your blog’s sidebar and/or footer just by going to the theme options page, looking for the feature you want to change or modify and then adding the text you want or toggling an option on or off. 

All of these themes come with documentation as well as tutorials for your convenience. For more detailed information about these themes, you can check out my themes page here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask :-).