Merit - Health & Medical WordPress Theme

Responsive Retina AJAX/Parallax Theme

• Created: 04/08/2023
• CMS: WordPress
• Builder: Elementor
• by: ThemeRange
• Theme Options: Redux
• PHP Version: 8.2
• WordPress Version: 6.7.1

Welcome to Merit - Health & Medical WordPress Theme

Installing Merit

Once you've downloaded the installation file on ThemeForest, extract it and locate a file called merit.zip. You can install the theme by using one of two installation methods:

1. WordPress upload - This is probably the simplest way for most users. Here are the steps you need to take:
   1. Login to WordPress admin
   2. Go to admin panel > Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme
   3. Click on "Choose File" and select merit.zip
   4. Click on "Install Now"
2. FTP upload - If you wish to install via FTP, here are the steps you need to take:
   1. Using FTP client, login to the server where your WordPress website is hosted
   2. Using FTP client, navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ directory under your WordPress website's root directory
   3. Using FTP client, upload the Merit directory to themes directory on remote server

Once installation is complete, your Merit theme will be ready to use. You can see ( Go to admin panel > Appearance > MERIT Options ) appear in the WordPress admin panel.

You should also see a notification at the top of the screen that required plugins need to be installed. Please install and activate all of the required plugins, since they are necessary for the theme to function properly.

Great - you can now start building your site!

Theme Activation and Registration

In order to activate your copy of Merit, you should input your purchase code and email address, and thus effectively register the theme. To do this, please navigate to Merit Dashboard > Merit Dashboard and input the required information there.

You can obtain your purchase code by following these steps:

• Log into your Envato Market account.
• Hover the mouse over your username at the top of the screen.
• Click ‘Downloads’ from the drop-down menu.
• Click ‘License certificate & purchase code’ (available as PDF or text file).

Importing Demo Content

With the Merit theme, you have the option to either start creating your site from scratch, or choosing to import one of the included demo sites to use as a starting point, and then modifying it to suit your needs. In this section we will explain how to do the latter.

Merit comes with a one-click import module. To import one of the included demo sites, please follow these steps:

1. Login to your WordPress admin panel
2. Navigate to Appearance > ThemeRange Import

Demo Import

Our theme includes the demo data to the One Click Demo Import plugin. In admin panel, you go to Appearance > Demo Importer (You have to install and activate the Avtar Plugin to see this menu item). Then you click on the Import Demo Data button and the Continue & Import button (without selecting any recommended plugin from One Click Demo Import). It will take a few minutes to complete!

Installing Woocommerce

If you plan on building an online shop with Merit, please read the WooCommerce section of this user guide before importing the demo content.

Installing Contact Form 7

If you plan on using contact forms on your website, you should instal the Contact Form 7 plugin before importing the demo content so you recieve the contact forms from your chosen demo site. For more information on how to install Contact Form 7, please read the Contact Form 7 section of this user guide.

Updating Merit

Auto-Update Feature

You can now enable the Auto-Updating feature for Merit. To do this, please first make sure that you have the Envato WordPress Toolkit plugin installed. If you haven't already installed this plugin, you should see a notification on the top of your Dashboard stating that some required plugins haven't been installed or activated. Install and activate all of the required plugins, including the Envato WordPress Toolkit.

After you have installed and activated the Envato WordPress Toolkit, please go to Envato Toolkit from your dashboard and enter your Marketplace Username and API Key. You can find your API Key by logging into your profile on Themeforest and navigating to Profile > Settings > API Keys.

When you have entered your Marketplace Username and API Key and clicked Save Settings, a new tab will appear at the top of the screen named "Themes". Click on this tab to see all the themes you have purchased. If there is an update available for a theme, you will be notified here. To update your theme, just click on the "Update Automatically" link.

Please note that each time you use the Auto-Update feature to update the theme, a backup file of the old version of the theme will be stored on your server in ".../wp-content/envato-backups".

Manual Update

You can update your theme manually by performing the following steps:

1. Download the latest theme zip file from ThemeForest
2. Extract it and locate merit.zip
3. Extract merit.zip and locate the Merit folder
4. Copy/Replace content of the Merit folder to the /wp-content/themes/Merit folder of your web site.

Important F.A.Q.

1. Why can't I save my menu?

WordPress by default has a limited number of menu items. When you import our demo site, which contains a lot of menu items, you might not be able to save changes you make to a menu. You can fix this problem by contacting your hosting and asking them to add the following lines to php.ini file:

            suhosin.post.max_vars = 5000
            suhosin.request.max_vars = 5000
        

2. Why is there a smiley displayed on blank pages?

This problem is most likely related to JetPack and memory settings of your hosting. You can either disable JetPack or read what the JetPack developer wrote: Regarding the memory limit, please refer to the WordPress Codex section concerning this problem. Some sites that load many plugins alongside WordPress ultimately require a higher memory limit than WordPress defaults to, but since this is limited to specific hosts and configurations, it must be dealt with on an individual basis. You'll find the Codex article at: https://codex.wordpress.org/Common_WordPress_Errors#Allowed_memory_size_exhausted

3. How do I optimize my site?

Please use this tool to investigate reasons for slow loading: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en

4. Why do I see a white screen when importing demo content?

If you get a white screen or some other error when trying to import our demo content, this probably happens because of the maximum execution time limit. You need to increase the maximum execution time (upload time) setting of your web server. The default maximum execution time on web servers is 30 seconds. Please increase it to 120 seconds. Possible ways of achieving this are:

• By Wp-config.php changes - set_time_limit(120);
• In htaccess - php_value max_execution_time 120;
• In php.ini file - max_execution_time = 120

Ask your hosting provider to take care of this for you.

Once you've installed Merit, you can start building your site.

Setting Up the Header

One of the first things you might want to do is to set up the header area. This section contains the logo, menu, search bar, side area icon, and other optional widgets.

To set it up, go to MERIT Options > Header from the admin panel. The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. If you need help with any of the options, please refer to MERIT Options in this user guide. Some options, such as the header skin and background color, can be overridden on the page level by going into the page's backend. For more information on how local page settings work, see Pages.

The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. Make sure that Header V1, Header V2 and Header V3 are selected. If you need help with any of the options here, please refer to MERIT Options in this user guide.

The settings you define here for specific page on your site. Make sure that Header V1, Header V2 and Header V3 are selected. Metabox Header selection are most priority then ( Appearance > MERIT Option > Header Setting ).

Uploading Your Logo

Now let's add a logo. Go to MERIT Options > Logo from the admin panel and click the upload button next to the "Logo Image - normal" field. You should now have a visible logo in your header area. you can upload sticky and mobile menu.

Menu Creation

To create a menu, go to Appearance > Menus from the admin panel. Click on "Create a new menu." Enter a name for your menu, and then click on "Create Menu".

Every page that you've created up until now will be listed in the section on the left called Pages. Simply check the ones that you want added to the menu, and then click on the "Add to Menu" button. Once added, you can click and drag the menu items to rearrange them, or nest them one under the other.

Underneath the menu items, under the section Menu Settings, check "Top Navigation" and click "Save Menu" in order to activate the menu you've just created. You should now have a functional menu on your pages.

Footer

Now let's set up the footer by going to MERIT Options > Footer from the admin panel.

The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. Make sure that Footer V1, Footer V2 and Footer V3 are enabled. If you need help with any of the options here, please refer to MERIT Options in this user guide.

The settings you define here for specific page on your site. Make sure that Footer V1, Footer V2 and Footer V3 are selected. Metabox Header selection are most priority then ( Appearance > MERIT Option > Header Setting ).

To add content to your footer, you need to activate widgets by going to Appearance > Widgets from the admin panel. On the right side of your page are widget areas for the footer, named Footer Widget. On the left side of your page are the available widgets. Simply drag the widget you'd like to one of the Footer widget areas on the right.

To add content to the footer bottom, add widgets to one of the Footer Bottom widget areas.

Building Pages

To create a new page, go to Pages > Add New from the admin panel. Enter a title for your page in the text field near the top of your screen. Then choose the "Default Elementor Page" template for your page in the section on the right called Page Attributes. This will allow you to have sections on your page that go across full width of the screen.

Now let's start adding shortcode to your page. Make sure that you're in the elementor builder. If the blue button on the center of the content says Edit with Elementor, click it to enable the Elementor Builder. Once you're in backend, the button will say CLASSIC MODE. You can now click on "Add Element" and start building your page. You can read more about elements in the Custom Shortcodes section of this user guide.

Finally, click the "Update" button in the bottom left underneath the left sidebar. (If you made some changes on already published page, "Update" button will highlighted.

Additional Notes

Font Icon Packs

Please note that Merit comes with two font icon packs: Font Awesome and Font Elegant. You can see an overview of all the available icons in both of these icon packs at the following links:

1. Font Awesome: https://fontawesome.com/
2. Font Flaticon: https://www.flaticon.com/

Blog Posts

To create a new blog post, go to Posts > Add New from the admin panel.

Enter a title for your post in the text field add content and click on publish button.

Now it's time to categorize this post.

1. Under Format, in the section called Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this post to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
2. Then click on "Add New Category".
3. Once you've checked the categories where you want this post to go to, click the "Publish button".
4. Under the Categories section are the Tags and Featured Image sections. Here you can add tags to your post, and upload an image to be displayed for this post on blog list pages, respectively.

Now that you've set up your blog post, let's go over the custom fields.

Merit Metabox Settings

You can access MERIT Options from the WordPress admin panel. The settings found here are applied globally and will affect all pages of the site. However, note that many of these options can be overridden locally by applying settings on individual pages or on shortcode elements.

General

This section allows you to set up general settings for your site that will affect its look and functionality. The Design Style section has options for setting fonts, colors, and layout. The Settings section has options for page transitions, animations, scrolling, and more. The Custom Code and SEO sections are where users can add their custom code and SEO settings.

Design Style

• Enable/Disable Preloader you can enable or disable preloader.
• Enable/Disable Sticky Header you can enable or disable sticky header.
• Enable/Disable Box Layout you can enable or disable box layout.
• Enable/Disable RTL Layout you can enable or disable RTL version.
• Enable/Disable Dark Theme you can enable or disable Dark Theme.
• Enable/Disable Back to Top you can enable or disable Back to Top.

Logo

This is where you can upload your website logos.

Sizing

The logos displayed on your page are limited in size by header height. For example, if you logo add your own size then you can add size in logo dimension with width and height in Pixel, Emphasis and Percentage.

Favicon

You can add favicon on your site here you can upload Favicon with size 16x16 pixel.

Header

This section allows you to set up the header area. The first choice to make is whether you'd like to have a top menu or menu navigation. You can then optionally enable a search bar, address, phone number, email address, working hours, side area and header top area. Each of these can be customized with text and content.

Side Area

• Enable Side Area - Choose "On" to allow viewers to open a sidebar. A sidebar icon will appear in the header next to main navigation and when clicked, a left sidebar will unfold. You can fill the sidebar with content by adding underneath the Enable Sidebar.

  

  

  

Footer

This section allows you to set up the footer area. There are two footer sections that can either be hidden or shown: the footer top and footer bottom. The footer top in subscribe for newsletter. The footer bottom is a simple section at the bottom of the page and is meant for placing copyright text.

Blog Page Settings

• Blog Page Settings This section allows you to set up page banner background, title and content sidebar direction, sidebar widgets.

  

• Tag Page Settings This section allows you to set up page banner background, title and content sidebar direction, sidebar widgets.

  

• Archive Page Settings This section allows you to set up page banner background, title and content sidebar direction, sidebar widgets.

  

• Author Page Settings This section allows you to set up page banner background, title and content sidebar direction, sidebar widgets.

  

• Category Page Settings This section allows you to set up page banner background, title and content sidebar direction, sidebar widgets.

  

• Search Page Settings This section allows you to set up search banner background, title and content sidebar direction, sidebar widgets.

  

• 404 Page Settings This section allows you to set up 404 page banner background, title and content details.

  

• Single Post Settings This section allows you to set up hide or show Author Box, Next and Previous, Tags and Social share icons.

  

• Single Projects Settings This section allows you to set up project detail page social share icons.

  

Language

This section allows you to add language file on your theme for language change.

Custom Sidebar

This section allows you to set up new widgets.

Social Share

This section allows you to set up social media icons on your whole site.

Custom Font

This section allows you to set up font properties for different elements on your site, which is essential for achieving a consistent design.

Heading Font

This section allows you to set up font properties for heading elements on your site, which is essential for achieving a consistent design.

Body Font

This section allows you to set up font properties for body elements on your site, which is essential for achieving a consistent design.

Import / Export

This section allows you to import and export theme options content. Import file will be provided in theme file where you can download from themeforest after purchase in dummy content folder.

When creating a new page, one of the first things you might want to do is to assign an appropriate template for it. To do this, go inside the page backend and locate the section on the right called Page Attributes. Merit comes with a variety of templates to choose from:

• Default Template - Choose this one WordPress's default theme layout.
• Coming Soon Page - These templates will show Coming Soon / Maintenance Page.
• Default Elementor Page - Choose this one if you wish to create a standard page with a theme layout.
• Elementor Canvas - This template is for Elementor.
• Elementor Full Width - This template is for Elementor.
• Theme - This template is for theme.

Merit Metabox Settings

To create a new project item, go to:

1. Project > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your project item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called Project Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Project Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New Project Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

Under the Project Categories section are the Featured Image sections. In Attributes, you can type in the order in which you'd like this project item to appear in project lists. In Featured Image, you can upload an image to be displayed for this item on project lists.

Now that you've set up your project item, let's go over the elementor builder for details.

Edit in elementor builder go here.

To create a new service item, go to:

Services

Services Details Page

• Default Elementor Page - Choose this one if you wish to create a standard page with a theme layout.

1. Services > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your service item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called Services Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Services Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New Services Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

Under the Services Categories section are the Featured Image sections. In Attributes, you can type in the order in which you'd like this service item to appear in service lists. In Featured Image, you can upload an image to be displayed for this item on service lists.

To create a new service item, go to:

Departments

Departments Details Page

• Default Elementor Page - Choose this one if you wish to create a standard page with a theme layout.

1. Departments > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your service item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called Departments Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Departments Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New Departments Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

Under the Departments Categories section are the Featured Image sections. In Attributes, you can type in the order in which you'd like this service item to appear in service lists. In Featured Image, you can upload an image to be displayed for this item on service lists.

To create a new doctors item, go to:

Style One

Style Two

1. Doctors > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your doctors item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called Doctors Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Doctors Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New Doctors Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

Under the Doctors Categories section are the Featured Image sections. In Attributes, you can type in the order in which you'd like this doctors item to appear in doctors lists. In Featured Image, you can upload an image to be displayed for this item on doctors lists.

Now that you've set up your doctors item, let's go over the elementor builder for details.

Edit in elementor builder watch the video.

To create a new testimonials item, go to:

1. Testimonials > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your testimonials item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called Testimonials Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Testimonials Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New Testimonials Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

Under the Testimonials Categories section are the Featured Image sections. In Attributes, you can type in the order in which you'd like this testimonials item to appear in testimonials lists. In Featured Image, you can upload an image to be displayed for this item on testimonials lists.

To create a new faqs item, go to:

1. FAQs > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your faqs item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called FAQs Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New FAQs Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New FAQs Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

Under the FAQs Categories section are the sections. In Attributes, you can type in the order in which you'd like this faqs item to appear in faqs lists to be displayed for this item on faqs lists.

To create a new timetable item, go to:

1. Timetable > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your timetable item in the text field near the top.
3. Next, let's categorize this item. At the right side of your screen, in the section called Event Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this item to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Event Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
4. Then click on "Add New Event Category".
5. Once you've checked the categories where you want this item to go to, click the "Publish" button.

To create a new timetable column, go to:

Backend

Frontend Column

Frontend

Widgets are easy to manage and can be incredibly useful to have on your site.

For Merit, we've developed custom widgets and widget areas to give you even more functionality. You can also create multiple custom sidebars.

To create a new custom widget, go to here.

Widgets

Here is our total widgets for site own widgets functionality.

• About Company - if you wish to use this widget widget area to add it to. Then, use this widget area for the Content Bottom. As a result, the About Company will display at the bottom of your pages in the footer.

  

  

• Merit Recent Post - You can use this widget to display your latest blog posts in different layout at the footer widget area.
• Merit Contact Info - You can use this widget to display your business's contact information at the footer widget area.
• Merit Working Hours - You can use the layout widgets to display your business's working hours at the footer widget areas.
• Merit Subscriber - You can use this widget to display your business's subscribe for newsletter at the footer widget area.
• Merit Working Time - You can use this widget to easily working time in add business working days at the departments widget areas.
• Merit Download Brochures - You can use this widget to download your buiness broucher in doc or pdf format at the services and departments widget area.
• Merit Popular Post - You can use this widget area to display your latest blog posts in different layout at a blog sidebar widget area.

Widget Areas

• Footer Widget - here you can add widgets to the Footer with different style.
• Footer Widget Two - here you can add widgets to the Footer with different style.
• Footer Widget Three - here you can add widgets to the Footer with different style.
• Serices Widget - here you can add widgets to the Services Sidebar.
• Departments Widget- here you can add widgets to the Departments Sidebar.
• Blog Widget - You can use this widget area to add widgets to the blog sidebar, blog detail sidebar also prefer to Archives, Author, Cateogry, Search and Tags sidebar.

To start creating your menu, go to Appearance > Menus from the admin panel.

At the upper left corner you'll see 2 tabs: Edit Menus and Manage Locations.

In Manage Locations, you can assign menus to two different locations: top navigation and fullscreen navigation. If using the Sticky Divided header type, you'll see two other locations: "left top navigation" and "right top navigation" (these locations apply to that specific header type).

Now let's go to Edit Menus. At the bottom of the page, in the section Menu Settings, you're also able to assign the current menu to a location.

When creating a menu, you can click on the little triangle on each menu item in order to open up a list of editable settings.

Let's go over them:

• Navigation Label - Here you can enter a navigation label for this menu item. By default, the label is the same as the page title.
• Title Attribute - The title attribute will pop up once viewers hover over the navigation label.
• Anchor - If you want this menu item to take viewers to a certain page section, enter the anchor here.
• Don't link - Enable this option if you don't want this menu item to be a clickable link.
• Don't show - Enable this option if you don't want this menu item to show. This is useful if you're creating a wide menu in which you need to have a 2nd level item in order to hold the 3rd level items, but you don't want the 2nd level items to show.
• Type - You can choose between 3 menu types. Leaving this field empty will display a dropdown menu. Note that you only need to make this setting for the parent menu item, and all its child items will follow.

To start creating your shortcode, go to Page > All Pages > About Us from the admin panel.

Here you can go elementor builder after admin login to specific page.

In the left side you can find the Merit tab for custom shortcode.

Drag your content in content area for more detail watch this video

Merit makes it possible to create forms for various purposes with the help of Contact Form 7.

In order to setup Contact Form 7, please perform the following steps:

1. Go to Contact > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Enter a title for your project item in the text field near the top.
3. Then create a form for your theme.
4. Once you've complete the form click the "Publish" button.

Now when you use Elementor Builder, you will see a new shortcode in the list of Merit tab - Contact specific shortcode.

Backend

Frontend

Merit comes with WooCommerce integration, which allows you to build an online shop. For more information on installing and configuring WooCommerce, please visit this page:

https://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-started/

In order to setup WooCommerce with our theme, please perform the following steps:

1. Go to Plugins > Add New from the admin panel.
2. Type "WooCommerce" in the search field.
3. Locate "WooCommerce - excelling eCommerce" in the search results and click on "Install Now".

   

4. Once installation is complete, click on "Activate Plugin".
5. You will see a notice saying "Welcome to WooCommerce � You're almost ready to start selling :)". If you plan on importing Merit demo content, click on "Skip Setup". Otherwise, click "Install Pages".
6. If importing the demo content, you should first set the product image sizes in order to achieve the same look that we did. Go to WooCommerce > Settings and click the "Products" tab. Under the section Product Image Sizes, enter the same values that we did:

   

   Note: if you wish to modify these sizes at a later date, you may need to regenerate thumbnails in order for it to take effect. This can be done with the following plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/.
7. See Importing Demo Content instructions in the Getting Started section of this user guide and perform the process explained there.

Please remember you have purchased a very affordable theme and you have not paid for a full-time web design agency. Occasionally we will help with small tweaks, but these requests will be put on a lower priority due to their nature. Support is also 100% optional and we provide it for your connivence, so please be patient, polite and respectful.

Please visit our support forum or ask question @ThemeRange

Support for my items includes:

• Responding to questions or problems regarding the item and its features
• Fixing bugs and reported issues
• Providing updates to ensure compatibility with new software versions

Item support does not include:

• Customization and installation services
• Support for third party software and plug-ins

Before seeking support, please...

• Make sure your question is a valid Theme Issue and not a customization request.
• Make sure you have read through the documentation and any related video guides before asking support on how to accomplish a task.
• Make sure to double check the theme FAQs.
• Try disabling any active plugins to make sure there isn't a conflict with a plugin. And if there is this way you can let us know.
• If you have customized your theme and now have an issue, back-track to make sure you didn't make a mistake. If you have made changes and can't find the issue, please provide us with your changelog.
• Almost 80% of the time we find that the solution to people's issues can be solved with a simple "Google Search". You might want to try that before seeking support. You might be able to fix the issue yourself much quicker than we can respond to your request.
• Make sure to state the name of the theme you are having issues with when requesting support via ThemeForest.