Restoring template

[Paula]

How can I restore the custom template I had installed prior to publishing the new one? Thanks.

[Jim]

I don't understand your question. Publishing creates html pages it does not change the template. The publish process reads templates and using the data from your store's database combines it to create the html pages with appropriate text, prices etc.

If the look of the pages changes that means you changed the templates that were assigned. You can change all the templates used by your store to a particular theme by going to Preferences > Themes. You can change the template used for certain areas on the configuration screen for that section of your store. Pages -- Pages > Edit Page Layout; Products - Products > Edit Product Layout ; Shopping cart -- Commerce Setup > Order System > Layout Info; Search -- Preferences > Search Settings > Search Layout etc.

If you changed the Theme setting it will set all templates in all areas of the store. If you had custom templates assigned to some areas the assigned template would have been changed to the template used by the theme. So if that happens the only way to get it back is to go the the area that you need to change back and re-assign your custom template.

Note: It is always a good idea to keep a backup copy of your database which contains most but not all of the template assignments used in the store. You should make sure you do that before you make any major change to the store. You can create a backup under Utilities > Database > Backup, which simply makes a copy of the database file with a .bak extension. Another way to keep all settings is to use the Utilities > Export Store feature which will download the data files from your store in a zipped format to your local PC. (This does not copy images or html pages, just that data to recreate the pages, shopping cart etc.