# Broadsheet: free WordPress theme URL: https://symelo.com/tools/wordpress-themes/broadsheet Free WordPress theme. A modern editorial block theme for magazines, news sites, newsletters and multi-author blogs, with light and dark editions and no plugins needed. A modern editorial block theme for magazines, news sites, newsletters and multi-author blogs, with light and dark editions and no plugins needed. - Price: free (GPLv2 or later) - Category: Magazine - Version 1.0.0, 2026-10-22. WordPress 7.0+, PHP 7.4+. GNU General Public License v2 or later. - Style variations: Evening, Green, Sepia Press, Tech - Fonts: Newsreader, Public Sans, Monospace ## Description Broadsheet brings the craft of a well-made newspaper to WordPress: a masthead with today's date and edition, ruled sections, red kicker labels, Newsreader headlines with optical sizing, drop caps and generous pull quotes. The navigation bar sticks to the top and turns into frosted glass as you scroll. **The front page** opens with a trending ticker and a bento of the day's stories: the lead story (your newest sticky post, or the newest post) with photo, headline and standfirst, three more top stories and a Latest column. Below come sections for your biggest categories (picked automatically, each in its own layout: a grid, a list with photos and an opinion-style quote layout), a dark Watch strip for video posts, a numbered Most discussed ranking (ordered by comments), a newsletter band, From the archive with newsprint-toned photos, and the full list of stories with pagination and a topics sidebar. **Stories** have breadcrumbs, a kicker, a large headline, the excerpt as standfirst, a byline with avatar, date and reading time, the featured video or featured image with its caption, a drop cap, polished lists, quotes, tables, footnotes and code, a sticky table of contents with share links beside the text on wide screens (collapsible above the story on phones), a reading progress bar, tags as glass chips, an author card, previous and next stories, comments and related stories from the same section. **Templates:** Front page (blog home), Story, Feature (full-screen cover with the headline over the photo, for long reads), Opinion (columnist layout with a big author portrait), Page, Wide page, Landing page, Archive, Author (with portrait and biography), Search and 404. **More than 60 patterns** in seven categories: heroes (lead bento, today's briefing, feature cover, section spotlight, opinion quote, background video, lead story cover), story grids and rankings, photo essays (masonry and carousel galleries with a lightbox), video and podcast strips, forms (newsletter, "send us a tip", contact), the masthead staff grid, events, FAQ, reader quotes, numbers, partner wordmarks, sponsor slot, membership appeal, and complete About, Contact, Photo essay, Videos, Landing and Masthead pages. **Five styles:** Morning (ink and press red, the default), Evening (dark), Sepia Press (warm newsprint), Tech (sans-serif headlines and electric blue) and Green (environment and science). Each has its own dark edition for the light/dark switch in the header. **Built in, no plugins needed** (the Symelo Theme Kit): forms with spam protection whose messages are stored under Messages and emailed to you, galleries in Masonry and Carousel styles, a slideshow lightbox, featured videos for posts (YouTube, Vimeo or a video file, loaded only after a click), play badges on video posts, light and dark color schemes, share links, table of contents, reading progress, back to top and tasteful scroll animations that respect reduced motion. ## Frequently Asked Questions #### Where do form messages go? How do I change the recipient? Every form (newsletter, tip line, contact) stores its messages under **Messages** in the dashboard and emails them to the site's admin address. Change the recipients under Messages → Settings, or for one form in the block settings (Email to). Messages can also be kept without email (turn off notifications) or deleted automatically after a number of days. #### How do I add a featured video to a post? Open the post in the editor and use the **Featured video** panel in the post sidebar: paste a YouTube or Vimeo address, or choose a video file, and optionally its running time. Story templates show the video at the top (the featured image is its poster), and lists of posts show a play badge with the time. Give such posts the Video format to list them in the Watch strip. #### How does the front page choose its sections? The lead story is your newest sticky post (or the newest post). The three category sections show your biggest categories by number of posts, with their names and links filled in automatically. Most discussed ranks posts by comment count. From the archive shows your earliest posts. All of it can be edited in the Site Editor (Appearance → Editor → Templates → Blog Home), and any section is also available as a pattern. #### How do I turn the animations off? Animations are short and play once. Visitors who ask their device for reduced motion get no animations and the background video stays still. To remove an animation, select the block and clear its classes in the Motion panel (or Advanced → Additional CSS classes). #### How does dark mode work? The light/dark switch in the header follows the visitor's device setting until they choose, and remembers the choice. Each style has a hand-tuned dark edition. With the Evening style the site is always dark and the switch is hidden. #### Which fonts does the theme use? Does it load anything from other sites? Newsreader (headlines and text) and Public Sans (labels and interface), both bundled with the theme. The theme loads nothing from other sites; YouTube and Vimeo players load only when a visitor clicks play. Avatars come from Gravatar as everywhere in WordPress. ## Downloads - [Broadsheet 1.0.0](https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/broadsheet/1.0.0/broadsheet-1.0.0.zip) (2026-10-22, 4.4 MB, SHA-256 ebc9f27cd2869388c0b6729620b854df1ce4eeb24dfd6c562a8e581455da61e2) ## Screenshots - https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/broadsheet/shots/home-d4d2a75a5e.webp - [All WordPress themes](https://symelo.com/tools/wordpress-themes) ## Related pages - [All tools](https://symelo.com/tools) - [Agent documentation](https://symelo.com/llms.txt)