Newspaper Theme Review: Still Publishing Powerhouse? (2024)

Ease of Use

I would rate the overall ease of use of Newspaper at 4/5.

Here's why:

• Newspaper ensures a seamless user experience by offering a hassle-free installation process.
• You have the flexibility to customize your theme effortlessly from both the front end and back end, allowing you to have complete control over its appearance.
• However, it is important to familiarize yourself with their plugins to access all the amazing features of the theme.

Installation Process

Newspaper WordPress theme is exclusively available for purchase on the Envato Marketplace.

After purchasing the theme, download the .zip file from your Envato account. Then, log into your website dashboard area with the right credentials. Now, go with the following steps for regular theme installation.

• Go to appearance > themes > add new > upload theme
• Find the .zip file you downloaded previously and proceed to upload it
• Click the install now button then activate the theme

Great! You’ve successfully installed and activated the Newspaper theme on your website.

Theme Setup

To set the Newspaper theme, you need to install and activate its required plugins.

Simply, hit the blue install/activate plugins button. Now the system will install the required plugins tagDiv Composer and tagDiv Cloud Library within a few seconds.

You can also manage the plugins from the Newspaper > plugin area. Here, you’ll get all the required, recommended, optional, tested, and dedicated plugins list for particular demos.

After installing and activating the necessary plugins, you'll gain access to the core theme settings, enabling you to begin customizing the theme to your preferences.

It's essential to acknowledge the impact of reliable web hosting on improving your site's overall performance.

Enter Hostinger, a top-tier hosting provider that brings a significant boost to your website's functionality and speed.

Discover the Hostinger advantage for your WordPress site:

• Enjoy a 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Affordable pricing at just $2.49/month (use the code darrel10 to get a discount)
• Global performance and reach with Hostinger's optimized hosting platform

Selecting Hostinger indicates a preference for a service dedicated to speed, stability, and exceptional performance, an ideal match for your website powered by the Newspaper theme.

Get Hostinger

Features

I would rate the overall features at 3.9/5.

Here's why:

• Newspaper has a dedicated front-end page builder named tagDiv Composer providing flexibility in designing unique layouts and pages.
• It comes with tons of customization options, allowing you to create dynamic and visually appealing websites.
• You can select from various pre-built full website demos and hundreds of templates crafted for different niches, saving you time and effort.

Here are the core features of Newspaper:

1. Theme Panel

Newspaper Theme Panel comes with all essential settings so you can customize the theme as per your needs. From the dashboard area, you can manage the settings yet you need to switch between the backend to the frontend to see the changes.

Go to Newspaper > Theme Panel area to the available settings.

To organize your WordPress website advertisements, the theme panel supports responsive Google ads options under the Ads area. Here, you can manage ads for the following:

• Header
• Sidebar
• Article top
• Footer top 
• Modal video popup
• Background click
• Custom ad
• More

For example, if you would like to set ads on the header, you need to click on the header ad option. Here, you can place your AdSense code and write an ad title.

The setting allows you to disable Ad options for admin/editor, table landscape, and other areas. You can also set AdSense size based on your website design and responsiveness.

Template settings help you to manage your website’s different templates for example 404, archive, author, page, search, and more.

There are some other settings you’ll get under this option to manage your website breadcrumbs, to top button, the sidebar, and others.

You can also enable the image lazy loading feature on your website and set loading effect animation from the provided ones.

Under Theme Panel > Block Settings area, you will get options for controlling different blocks. For example, you can manage the global block for header templates.

Here, you can select your website's global header template from the provided options. To do this, simply click on the template that fits with your website and press the save settings button. 

Theme Panel also gives you options to manage your website scripts and Google Analytics code. Navigate to the Analytics/JS Codes area first. After that, you can include your Google Analytics code in the <head> tag.

If you want to add some scripts after the <body> tag, you have that option tool. There is also a dedicated place for adding footer JavaScript code.

2. tagDiv Composer

tagDiv Composer is a powerful front-end page builder that allows you to create stunning and highly customizable layouts without any coding knowledge.

With its easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, you can effortlessly arrange elements, add content modules, and customize styles to bring your creative ideas to life.

Whether you're creating a simple blog post or a complex magazine layout, tagDiv Composer offers a wide range of pre-designed templates, elements, and customization options to meet your diverse needs.

This tool makes website construction smooth and efficient, enabling you to create professional pages with simplicity. Click edit with tagDiv Composer button to open the page to the editor panel.

Hit the + Add button to open its design elements and blocks.

Now, you can use its drag-and-drop elements to design your pages from scratch. Yet, you can customize the demo site as per your requirements.

tagDiv Composer makes the website design process simple providing an intuitive and user-friendly platform for building visually appealing and functional websites.

With its versatility and user-friendly features, it empowers users to unleash their creativity and effortlessly create amazing online experiences.

3. Mobile Theme

Newspaper's Mobile Theme is designed to provide a smooth and user-friendly experience on all mobile devices. It prioritizes accessibility, improves website performance, and looks great on smartphones and tablets.

To achieve this, the Mobile Theme utilizes advanced techniques like lazy loading and optimized code to minimize loading times and enhance overall performance.

So users can quickly and effortlessly access content, regardless of their device or network speed. You can personalize your mobile website's appearance to match your brand identity and preferences.

It allows you to choose from different customizable fonts, colors, and layout options to create a visually appealing and cohesive mobile experience that complements your desktop site.

Newspaper Mobile Theme empowers users to deliver an exceptional mobile browsing experience. It ensures that their content remains accessible and engaging to a diverse audience on all devices.

4. Opt-In Builder

The Opt-In Builder is a powerful tool that helps you build and manage email opt-in forms on your website. You can create custom opt-in forms to capture visitor email addresses and grow the subscriber list.

It also comes with simple membership management capabilities. You can effortlessly create and manage multiple subscription plans, whether offering free access or multiple paid membership tiers.

With a custom interface designed for efficient user management, you can easily configure unique pricing and content access levels for each membership tier.

You can simply create your email list opt-in from  Opt-in Builder> Leds- email section. Then you can import the Leads block into your page and customize its settings as you prefer.

You can navigate to Opt-in Builder> subscriptions area to manage your website membership. Here, you can manage payment, coupons, subscriptions, membership plans, and other essentials.

You can play with the settings to set currency, date format, cache, and lock posts. The settings also let you manage email settings and notifications with ease.

With the Opt-In Builder, users can leverage the power of email marketing and membership management to engage with their audience, drive traffic to their website, and ultimately grow their business.

5. Cloud Library

The Newspaper Cloud Library is a huge collection of pre-designed templates, elements, and layouts to enhance your website design and make the content creation process smoother.

You can explore a diverse selection of professionally crafted templates that cover various content niches, including news, lifestyle, technology, and business.

These templates serve as a solid foundation for creating visually stunning and highly functional websites, saving you time and effort in the design phase.

It gives you access to a wide array of elements and blocks, such as headers, footers, widgets, and post styles, making it easy for you to customize your website.

Whether you want to add a sleek header design or incorporate eye-catching post layouts, the Cloud Library offers endless possibilities for customization.

Cloud Library is regularly updated with new templates and elements, ensuring that you always have access to the latest design trends and features.

Pre-Built Websites

Newspaper's prebuilt websites offer a wide range of choices for different types of content, giving users a great starting point for creating their own websites.

With over 155 professionally designed templates available, users can easily find a layout that matches their vision and content needs.

Each prebuilt website is carefully designed with attention to detail, ensuring a visually impressive and user-friendly experience.

Moreover, the demo websites are fully customizable, allowing users to personalize every aspect to reflect their brand identity and aesthetic preferences.

With intuitive customization options and the ability to modify layouts, colors, typography, and more, users can create a truly unique and captivating online presence.

Whether you're starting a news portal, a lifestyle blog, or an e-commerce store, Newspaper's readymade websites provide a strong foundation for building a professional and engaging website effortlessly.

Let’s see how to import a Newspaper demo website with a single click. First, go to  Newspaper > prebuilt websites area.

Here you’ll get all the demos. You can even filter demos based on a particular category. Now choose a suitable demo that suits your needs and simply, hit the install button.

Newspaper provides users with two different choices when it comes to importing demo websites: Install Design Only and Install Include Content.

After finishing the process, you can go to your website and see how it looks now. If you choose to import the same demo site, your website will have a similar appearance to the image shown below.

Quick and simple!

Reliability

I would rate overall Newspaper reliability at 3.4/5.

Here's why:

• The Newspaper theme is receiving compliments for its regular updates, guaranteeing that users always have access to the newest features and enhancements.
• Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement in its performance, as shown by a ‘B‘ grade (82%) on GTmetrix.
• Performance problems become more apparent, especially when working with larger demo sites.

Performance

Taking a closer look at speed and efficiency, I imported a couple of pre-designed websites and assessed their performance through GTmetrix.

For the first test, I imported the default demo and the result is below:

The default demo received a C grade with a performance score of 68%. Nevertheless, it falls short of the average performance benchmark due to a page loading time of 3.1 seconds and a full page size of 1.33MB.

Then I imported another latest demo site to see how it performs.

I was completely taken aback by the outcome this time. It received a disappointing D grade with a performance of only 59%. The page size is a whopping 11.3 MB and it takes a frustratingly long 8.4 seconds to load.

After that, I imported another lightweight template. Here are the results:

This time, it achieved a B grade with 82% performance. The page loaded in 3.5 seconds and the page size is only 531 KB, which is quite good compared to the other two tests. However, it still falls short of an A grade, leaving room for improvement.

I have conducted GTmetrix tests on a couple of WordPress themes. Here is how the Newspaper compares to the others.

Honestly, I found the overall performance and page speed of the Newspaper theme quite unsatisfactory especially when you use their large demo sites.

⛔ Warning: The results from GTmetrix aren’t conclusive and won’t always hold true as the themes continue to update. However, they are a good indication of the themes’ performance and speed insights.

Your website's speed relies not only on a good theme like Newspaper but also on the quality of your hosting service.

Updates and Maintenance

Newspaper's recent theme update introduces exciting new features and improvements. The latest update includes various improvements, bug fixes, plugin updates, and more.

These are some of the highlights:

• New Feature – Forest Beat: Introduces a new demo option for users to explore.
• Improved Woo Product Description: Users can now set an initial height for product descriptions, enhancing customization options.
• Revolution Slider Update: The plugin has been updated to the latest version, ensuring compatibility and performance.
• Fixes for User Experience: Various UI fixes and improvements have been implemented, including resolving issues with color picker, menu cart functionality, and Yoast analyzer.
• Enhanced Compatibility: Updates and fixes ensure improved compatibility with WooCommerce, single post layouts, and custom fields, enhancing overall user experience and functionality.

Support

I would rate overall Newspaper support at 3.8/5.

Here's why:

• They have an organized support forum for issue tracking and resolution.
• You can interact with their community platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
• They provide documentation for self-help and reference.

Customer Service

The Newspaper theme offers multiple support systems.

You can get support from:

• Ticketing system
• Support forum
• Community forums
• Video tutorials and guides
• Documentations

You have the option of accessing their various support resources directly from your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to the Newspaper> support section to find quick links to their support forum, documentation, and video tutorials.

Documentation

The official documentation page of the newspaper is nicely structured. You can make use of the search form at the top to easily filter through the documents according to your queries.

Additionally, the left sidebar menu provides convenient access to all the available documentation. The sidebar is well-organized with a user-friendly navigation system.

While reviewing knowledge-based articles, I noticed they were well-written and included relevant images for better understanding.

Support Forum

If you need fast assistance from the community, it's good to join the Newspaper support forum. By becoming a member, you can share your concerns and get helpful solutions from their committed team.

Just remember to sign up for their support forum to access the available posts and seek the support you need.

⚠️ Note: The support staff guarantees a maximum response time of one business day. If you need personalized assistance, you can reach us through our email address.

Community Support

The Newspaper theme is also available on popular social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Their official Facebook page has garnered an impressive 24k likes and 26k followers.

On their page, you can expect to find theme updates, interesting features, exciting deals, and other promotional content. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to leave a comment on their posts and they will be happy to assist you.

Newspaper has an official YouTube channel where they upload video tutorials. Currently, they have 21.5K subscribers and uploaded 97 videos.

I found that the newspaper's official YouTube channel hasn't posted any new videos in more than 2 years. However, it's great to see that they engaged with their audience through comments.

Pricing

I would rate the overall pricing of the Newspaper theme at 4.2/5.

Here's why:

• Newspaper is priced at $59, offering significant cost savings compared to similar products.
• Users receive lifetime free updates and six months of support, ensuring they always have access to the newest features.
• Nevertheless, the current licensing system limits usage to one website, which may be a drawback for developers or businesses managing multiple sites.

Yet, introducing a multi-site license or a more direct refund policy could enhance user satisfaction.

Cost Breakdown

Newspaper's pricing is straightforward, providing exceptional value considering its wide array of features.

You can take it directly from the Envato Market:

For $59, you will gain access to the following:

• All the features Newspaper theme offers
• Free updates
• 6 months of support from the author

⚠️ Note: One limitation of purchasing a theme from Envato Market is that the regular license only extends to a single website.

Consider these additional costs:

• The handling fee for using credit card transactions during purchase
• Extending support to 12 months will cost $17.63

Money Back Guarantee/Refund

Newspaper theme is exclusively available for purchase on Envato Market, thereby subjecting it to Envato Market's refund policies.

Here’s a summary of their refund policy:

Table go here

Final Thoughts

The Newspaper magazine theme is an excellent example of modern website design, offering a complete solution for creating immersive digital experiences.

With pricing that is comparable to other premium WordPress themes on the Envato market, Newspaper offers exceptional value for money.

Whether you're an experienced web developer or a beginner, Newspaper is here to help you achieve your digital goals and set new standards in website design and functionality.

If the thought of ongoing updates and costs seems daunting, Darrel Wilson's exclusive offer might be the perfect solution.

Get lifetime access to all premium template kits designed specifically for Elementor:

• Get lifetime access to all premium template kits designed for Elementor
• Complete with 2 years of dedicated support
• Only for $99 — that's already for the lifetime access

Take this opportunity to simplify your website management with Darrel Wilson's game-changing templates.

Get All Access