LT News is a news magazine theme for Elementor (free): this week's issue drawn as a flatplan of numbered page spreads coloured by desk, latest news, desk pages for local, business and culture, a morning briefing, what's on listings, subscriptions and gift subscriptions, an advertising rate card and a tip and letters form. A Hello Elementor child theme with bundled fonts, one-page mode and a mobile menu.
Editions
| Edition | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | The child theme with its design, fonts, header and footer, the About and Contact pages, blog and 404 templates, one-page mode and the mobile menu. Credit link stays. |
| Pro Standard | $29 a year | Every page, sample posts and one-click demo import, credit removal. Downloads, updates and ticket support for 1 year, 1 website. |
| Pro Unlimited | $49 once | Everything in Pro Standard plus the AI kit. Unlimited websites, lifetime updates and ticket support. |
Pages in Free (Appearance → Starter setup): About us, Contact, News. Pages in Pro (Appearance → Demo import): Home, About us, The newsroom, Standards and corrections, Sections, Local, Business, Culture, Books, Music, Food and drink, Subscribe, Gift subscriptions, Contact, Advertise, News.
Quick setup
- Install the free Elementor plugin and the Hello Elementor theme, then upload and activate LT News (Install and update).
- Optional: activate WPForms Lite for the send a tip or a letter form.
- Pro: Appearance → Demo import → Import (Demo import). Free: Appearance → Starter setup.
- Replace the demo content and pictures (below), set your logo and the header button.
Pages in the demo
| Page | Under | Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Home | – | Pro |
| About us | – | Free |
| The newsroom | About us | Pro |
| Standards and corrections | About us | Pro |
| Sections | – | Pro |
| Local | Sections | Pro |
| Business | Sections | Pro |
| Culture | Sections | Pro |
| Books | Culture | Pro |
| Music | Culture | Pro |
| Food and drink | Culture | Pro |
| Subscribe | – | Pro |
| Gift subscriptions | Subscribe | Pro |
| Contact | – | Free |
| Advertise | Contact | Pro |
| News (blog) | – | Free |
Home page sections
The home page sections, in order, with the name they have in Elementor’s Navigator and their CSS ID (the anchor used by one-page mode and by links such as /#issue).
| Section (Navigator name) | CSS ID |
|---|---|
| This week's issue | #issue |
| Latest news | #latest |
| Sections | #desks |
| Morning briefing | #briefing |
| Cover story | #cover |
| What's on | #whats-on |
| Subscribe | #subscribe |
| Send a tip | #tips |
| How we report | #standards |
- This week's issue, as a flatplan: The home page opens with the cover line and the issue drawn as numbered page spreads, each story coloured by its desk and linked to it.
- Desks with their own colour: Local, Business, Culture and What's on each get a colour, a desk page with its latest posts and a page count for this week.
- Latest news and what's on: Your newest posts on the home page and desk pages, plus listings rows with date, venue and price.
- Subscriptions and advertising: Plans with example prices, a weekday briefing section, gift subscriptions and an advertising rate card with deadlines.
- Free Elementor and a ready tip form: Every page is built with free Elementor widgets on Hello Elementor, with a 'Send a tip or a letter' form made with the free WPForms Lite plugin. Fonts are bundled: no Google Fonts requests.
Menu
The demo import creates this main menu (Appearance → Menus):
- Home
- About → The newsroom, Standards and corrections
- Sections → Local, Business, Culture (Books, Music, Food and drink)
- News
- Subscribe → Gift subscriptions
- Contact → Advertise
Header button: Subscribe (link /subscribe/), changed in Appearance → Customize → LT News options.
One-page mode (Pro)
With Pro Standard or Pro Unlimited, tick One-page mode on the home page in Appearance → Customize → LT News options and the menu scrolls to these sections: This week's issue, Latest news, Sections, Morning briefing, Cover story, What's on, Subscribe, Send a tip, How we report. To change the labels or leave sections out, see One-page mode.
Used the old LT News onepage WordPress theme? It is not sold any more: version 2.0 is one theme for both. Install its Pro edition and turn on one-page mode.
Colours and fonts
Change them in Elementor Site Settings → Global Colors and Global Fonts; the whole site follows.
| Name in Global Colors | Value |
|---|---|
| Masthead red (masthead, buttons, links) | #A3151F |
| Pencil grey (soft text) | #525560 |
| Press ink (text) | #15161C |
| Process yellow (marks on oxblood only) | #F3C623 |
| Proof white (page) | #F5F6F8 |
| Wall board (tinted sections) | #E6E8ED |
| Hairlines | #C9CDD6 |
| Oxblood (dark bands) | #5A0E15 |
| Text on oxblood | #FFFFFF |
| Soft text on oxblood | #E7C9CB |
| Button hover | #7C0E16 |
| Desk: Local (process cyan tint) | #A6D8EC |
| Desk: Business (process yellow tint) | #F6DD74 |
| Desk: Culture (magenta tint) | #EDB3CF |
| Desk: What's on (green tint) | #BFDDA0 |
| Name in Global Fonts | Font |
|---|---|
| Display (headlines, page numbers) | Alumni Sans |
| Interface (menu, labels) | Alumni Sans |
| Body text (serif) | Noticia Text |
| Buttons | Alumni Sans |
Form
With WPForms Lite active, the demo import creates the form Send a tip or a letter on the Contact page. Fields: Your name (required), Email (required), What is it? (required), Where and when, Your message (required), Can we use your name? (required), Follow-up. Email subject: “Tip or letter from the website”. After sending, visitors see: “Thank you. An editor reads every message; if we follow it up, a reporter will reply by email.”
See Contact form for where messages go and how to change the fields.
Demo content to replace
Everything marked with one of these in the demo is sample content: names, numbers, prices and addresses that you replace with your own (or delete):
(sample)Example pricesexample.com(555)The Valley CourierSpringfieldIssue 412
- Keep the flatplan page numbers in order and one page per number; a story's slug goes on the page where it starts.
- Use the four desk tints only for their desks, as fills behind ink text; never as text colours.
- Keep process yellow for marks on the oxblood band only.
Only publish facts that are true for your business: real prices, opening hours, reviews and qualifications. Pro Unlimited’s launch checker lists every sample marker left on the site.
Photo guide
The demo uses placeholder pictures. Replace each one in Elementor (click it → Choose image) with a photo of about this size; save photos as JPEG or WebP under about 300 KB.
| Picture | Upload size |
|---|---|
| Two bridges over a calm river in autumn, the town on the far bank | 1600 × 1200 px |
| Three colleagues in an editorial meeting, reading printed pages | 1600 × 1200 px |
| A long row of printed magazines seen from their spines | 1600 × 1200 px |
| A large indoor market hall with rows of stalls under an arched roof | 1600 × 1200 px |
| An audience clapping in front of a lit stage, seen from behind | 1600 × 1200 px |
| Shelves and tables full of books in an independent bookshop | 1600 × 1200 px |
| A street cook tossing noodles in a pan at a market stall | 1600 × 1200 px |
| A wood-panelled town hall council chamber under a skylight | 1600 × 1000 px |
| A market hall seen from the gallery, shoppers between the stalls | 1600 × 1000 px |
| Cyclists on a town street at dusk, shop windows lit | 1600 × 1000 px |
| A library hall with tall bookshelves behind white columns | 1600 × 1000 px |
AI kit (Pro Unlimited)
The AI kit’s AGENTS.md tells an assistant how LT News is built. The CSS classes it relies on (keep them when you edit):
| CSS class | What it is |
|---|---|
lt-hero | home hero band (this week's issue: cover line, standfirst, flatplan) |
lt-flatplan | the issue as page spreads; children lt-spread (add lt-spread–single for page 1 and the back page) |
lt-sheet | one page of the flatplan; desk class lt-sheet–local|business|culture|whatson|front|ad, is-start where a story starts |
lt-sheet__no | page number (Text widget, tabular figures) |
lt-sheet__slug | story slug on its first page (Heading widget, links to the desk) |
lt-key | desk colour key; swatches lt-swatch lt-swatch–<desk> inside the text |
lt-desk-row | one desk in the desks list; the name heading takes lt-swatch–<desk> |
lt-pagecount | Sections page bar: one square per page a desk fills this week |
lt-event | one what's-on row (date, event and venue, price) |
lt-price | price or rate row (label + amount) |
lt-plan | the panel next to the prices (what arrives when) |
lt-byline | byline in italic serif |
lt-standfirst | standfirst under a headline |
lt-steps | ordered steps (how a story gets in, how a gift works); each lt-step |
lt-timeline | the paper's history rows (year + event) |
lt-person | one person in a newsroom grid |
lt-pagehead | inner page heading band |
lt-desk | contact desk block |
lt-cta | closing call-to-action band (oxblood) |
See AI kit for the prompts, the safe edit tool and the launch checker.
Questions about LT News
Do I need Elementor Pro?
No. LT News uses only the free Elementor plugin and the free Hello Elementor theme. The header and footer are part of the theme, so you do not need Theme Builder.
How do I change the flatplan each week?
Each page of the flatplan is an Elementor container with a page number and a story slug. Edit the slugs and links, or change a page's desk class; the AI kit's safe edit tool can do it from a list.
Where do the news stories come from?
From your normal WordPress posts. The home page and the desk pages show the latest posts, filtered by category on each desk page.
Does it work as a one-page site?
Yes. Turn on one-page mode in the Customizer and the menu scrolls to the home page sections; every edition includes it.
What is the difference between Free and Pro?
Free has the design, header and footer, the About and Contact pages and the blog. Pro adds the home page, the Sections, Subscribe and desk pages, sample posts, one-click demo import, credit removal, updates and support. Pro Unlimited adds the AI kit.
I have the old LT News. Is this an update?
It is a new version 2.0 with a new design, built for free Elementor. Your current site keeps working; install 2.0 on a new site or a staging copy and import the demo there.
Also for Joomla
LT News also exists as a Joomla template: see the LT News Joomla docs.
Ask AI about LT News
Ask in your own words. The assistant answers from these docs and links the sections it used.
AI answers can be wrong; check the linked section. Never share passwords or licence keys. Open a ticket