Drupal For Absolute Beginners (2025)

Discover what Drupal is and how a free web content management system (CMS) lets you build various web applications without coding, focusing on content rather than backend concerns.

Drupal powers large, complex websites with high traffic, offering customization and control through custom content types, as used by Tesla, Nokia, and the European Commission.

Learn what localhost software is and why you need it to run Drupal, including Apache, PHP, and MySQL; explore Xampp, Mamp, and Wamp across Windows, Linux, and OS X.

Install XAMPP on Windows, launch the control panel, start Apache and MySQL, then test with localhost to ensure everything runs.

Learn to solve a Drupal PHP extension error by editing php.ini, enabling the gd extension, restarting Apache and MySQL, and continuing the Drupal installation.

Download, extract, and install Drupal on your localhost by configuring Apache and MySQL, creating a database with phpMyAdmin, and setting up an admin account.

Take a quick tour of your Drupal site by accessing localhost, logging in, and exploring the admin toolbar, header, and footer, and editing the site title and navigation.

Explore a quick overview of Drupal admin toolbar and black ribbon, highlighting how to access content, structure, appearance, extend modules, configuration, people, reports, and help, plus shortcuts and user options.

Create a basic page in Drupal for static content like about us, learn the differences from articles, and add it to the main navigation before publishing without comments.

Learn how to add an article in Drupal by setting the title, featured image, and body, adding tags, and configuring front-page promotion and comments.

Edit articles and basic pages in Drupal from the all content page, use the edit button or pencil icon, manage revisions to revert to earlier versions, and save changes.

Learn how to use revisions in Drupal to revert content to an older version, including viewing versions, selecting a target revision, and confirming the revert.

Learn to source high-quality, free images from Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash while crediting photographers to avoid copyright issues and ensure legal use on your website.

Learn to format text in Drupal's editor, mastering bold, italic, strikethrough, superscript, subscript, links, images, tables, lists, code blocks, headings, and HTML source.

Create a new user in Drupal by filling the form, selecting active status, and assigning the authenticated user role, then log in to verify access.

Create and assign a custom author role, manage user profiles, and configure permissions for articles, comments, and admin features in Drupal.

Discover what a block is in Drupal, how to configure, place, and manage blocks across regions like header and sidebar, including visibility, order, and removal.

Learn to restrict Drupal blocks to specific user roles, content types like articles, and individual pages by configuring blocks in the structure and block layout.

Learn to improve Drupal URL structure by using URL aliases, editing content to set custom paths like /about and /contact, and ensure SEO-friendly, user-friendly URLs.

Learn to edit existing menus in drupal by deleting default pages, adding contact links to main navigation with proper weight, and placing the footer menu via block layout.

Create a new Drupal menu, add items including a sub menu tied to a parent link, and place the menu in the site layout between the search and tools blocks.

Explore how Drupal modules extend site features with tiny files and learn to add, search, and install modules from web links or files for features like Path Auto and Token.

Configure the Path Auto module to automatically generate URL aliases for basic pages and articles, using title tokens to create blog patterns and verify the resulting aliases.

Edit the contact form in Drupal for absolute beginners, change the label and recipient, and add a required phone number field with proper placement.

Learn how themes define your Drupal site's presentation, distinguishing front end themes from admin themes, and how to install, configure, set a default, and revert themes.

Explore content types in Drupal, including basic page and article defaults, how each content piece fits a type, and how to create custom content types with different settings like comments.

Create a custom content type offline event in Drupal with title, body, location, date and time, and a cover image. Enable revisions and refine the form layout.

Create and organize an offline event content type, adjust field ordering, and hide the cover image label to present title, link, location, date and time, and body.

Create a custom content type named online event with title, body, date and time, join link, and cover image, then post a screenshot in the discussion.

Create a new online event content type in Drupal, add fields for a link, date and time, and a cover image, and configure form and display settings.