# Longhand: free WordPress theme

URL: https://symelo.com/tools/wordpress-themes/longhand

Free WordPress theme. A calm, typographic block theme for writers' blogs: essays, recipes, trips, series and photo stories.

A calm, typographic block theme for writers' blogs: essays, recipes, trips, series and photo stories.

- Price: free (GPLv2 or later)
- Category: Blog
- Version 1.0.0, 2026-10-22. WordPress 7.0+, PHP 7.4+. GNU General Public License v2 or later.
- Style variations: Berry, Modern type, Night ink, Sage, Sepia
- Fonts: Literata, Hanken Grotesk, Caveat, Monospace
- Works with: [Secure Custom Fields](https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/), a free plugin by WordPress.org, optional

## Description

Longhand is ink-blue on cotton paper: Literata for reading, handwritten margin notes in Caveat, and a numbered journal index instead of the usual grid. It is built for people who write about more than one thing.

* **Posts with extras** (with the free Secure Custom Fields plugin; one click installs it): subtitle, header layout per post (standard, cover, split, minimal), series in parts with navigation, sponsored/affiliate/gifted disclosures, key takeaways, photo stories (carousel, stack or masonry), hand-picked related posts, recipe cards (ingredient groups, servings scaler, print, nutrition, Google rich results) and trip itineraries (day by day, places, a map that loads after a click).
* **Author profiles:** tagline, portrait, location and links on author boxes and author pages.
* **Save for later:** bookmark buttons and a reading list kept in the visitor's browser.
* **Filters:** keyword, topic, series, kind of post and sort on the journal, archives and search.
* **Forms:** contact, newsletter and request forms with a Messages inbox in wp-admin, spam protection and privacy tools.
* **Galleries and video:** masonry and carousel galleries with a slideshow lightbox, featured video, click-to-load YouTube and Vimeo.
* **Light and dark:** a "Night ink" scheme with a switch in the header, and five style variations (Sepia, Sage, Berry, Night ink, Modern type).
* **Demo content:** Appearance → Import demo creates a home page, posts with recipes, a walking itinerary, two series, photo stories, About, Contact, Series and Reading list pages and a menu.

No page builder needed. Everything is made of blocks and patterns you can edit in the Site Editor.

## Frequently Asked Questions

#### Where do contact form messages go?

To Messages in wp-admin, and by email to the site's admin address. Change the recipient under Messages → Settings, or per form in the form block's settings.

#### Do I need Secure Custom Fields?

The theme works without it. The post extras (subtitle, recipes, trips, series covers, photo stories, author profiles) are edited with Secure Custom Fields; Longhand offers to install and activate it in one click.

#### How do I add a recipe or an itinerary to a post?

Open the post, scroll to Post details below the editor, and switch on "This post has a recipe" (Recipe tab) or "This post has a trip itinerary" (Trip tab). The recipe card and the itinerary appear in the post automatically.

#### How does "Save for later" work?

The bookmark button stores the post in the visitor's browser (nothing is sent to your site). The Saved button in the header lists them. Turn it off under Appearance → Blog settings.

#### Can I turn off the animations?

They follow the visitor's "reduce motion" setting. Remove the motion classes from a block under its Motion panel.

#### How do I switch to dark mode?

Visitors use the moon button in the header; by default the theme follows their system. Choose the Night ink style variation to make the dark palette the only one.

## Downloads

- [Longhand 1.0.0](https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/longhand/1.0.0/longhand-1.0.0.zip) (2026-10-22, 3.0 MB, SHA-256 7329ad315d54db261be7780865f479d90e320ca7048d97026990a2b6b196d689)

## Screenshots

- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/longhand/shots/home-ad5c264f8c.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/longhand/shots/journal-9966c1dfad.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/longhand/shots/journal-sb-kind-recipe-9e6935e29c.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/longhand/shots/series-d343867ff3.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/longhand/shots/admin-fields-d8ed69bd8b.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)