Install and update

Requirements

	Needs
WordPress	7.1 or newer. The theme is a block theme with `theme.json` v3 and uses the Abilities API; it will not run on an older release.
PHP	7.4 minimum. Tested on 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3.
Browsers	Current Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge.
Editor	The Site Editor. There is no page builder and none is claimed. Elementor is not supported.
WooCommerce	Not supported and not claimed. The theme sells nothing.
Multilingual	Polylang (tested) · WPML (documented, untested) — see Translation.
Server	Nothing unusual. No `exec`, no cron, no outbound network — except during the demo import, which fetches the demo photographs from our server.

The installable zip, and the main download

This is where most installs go wrong, so it is worth one minute.

Your purchase gives you one big zip, table-and-type-package-<version>.zip. It is not a theme. Unpack it on your own machine and you get:

table-and-type-package-1.0.0.zip
├── table-and-type.zip          ← the theme. THIS is what you upload.
├── table-and-type-child.zip    ← the child theme, optional
├── plugins/
│   └── table-and-type-core.zip ← the companion plugin (the demo content file is inside it)
├── documentation/              this site, offline
├── licensing/                  GPL text and the asset credits
└── changelog.txt

Appearance › Themes › Add New › Upload Theme → table-and-type.zip.
If WordPress says "The package could not be installed. The theme is missing the style.css stylesheet", you uploaded the big zip. Unpack it and upload the small one.

You can also install through the free Envato Market plugin, which handles both the install and later updates from your Envato account.

The companion plugin

table-and-type-core holds the content: dishes, services, sections, hours rows, slips, booking rows and the site facts, plus the blocks that render them and the agent abilities.

Two ways in, and they install the same file:

Appearance › Install plugins (TGM Plugin Activation). Table and Type Core is listed as recommended, never required; WordPress downloads it from https://tailthemes.com/wordpress/plugins/table-and-type-core.zip. Nothing is force-activated and the notice is dismissible.
Plugins › Add New › Upload Plugin → plugins/table-and-type-core.zip from your download. Use this when your server cannot reach ours.

The same screen also offers One Click Demo Import and, if you translate, Polylang — both free from wordpress.org, both opt-in.

Envato does not allow a zip inside a theme zip, which is why the plugin is downloaded rather than bundled inside the theme. The identical zip sits in your download's plugins/ folder.

What the companion plugin adds

With the plugin off	With it on
Every page renders. Every band, heading, rule and action is there, as blocks you edit by hand.	The same pages, filled from records.
Every plugin block on the demo pages is drawn by the theme's static twin: the same card, slips, hours, facts and grinder, frozen at the demo's Wednesday lunch (`inc/twins/`).	The same objects, filled from your records and today's clock.
The card is the demo's 52 dishes, printed once with the theme's placeholder drawings, all five services stacked.	The card is your dishes, one service per tab, filtered, with photographs cropped to a focal point.
The header's status slot is empty; the footer prints its placeholders.	"Open until 17:00" and your address, derived from the hours and the site facts.
The slips are frozen at their demo dates.	Dated slips that strike rows and expire themselves.
The enquiry block prints a write-to-us address.	A form that validates, sends and answers.
No structured data, no abilities.	Both.

Deactivating it deletes nothing, and neither does switching theme: the records stay in your database. See the honest numbers for how much of each page survives.

The child theme

Install table-and-type-child.zip the same way, then activate it instead of the parent. Use it when you want to add PHP or CSS of your own and keep updating the parent.

You usually do not need it. Block themes keep your colours, fonts, templates and template parts in the database, not in files: changes you make in Appearance › Editor survive a theme update whether or not you use a child theme. The child theme is for code — a functions.php snippet, a stylesheet rule, a template override you want under version control.

Updating without losing anything

Your content is safe across an update because of where it lives:

What	Where it lives	Survives a theme update	Survives a theme switch
Dishes, services, sections, hours, slips, booking rows, site facts	The companion plugin's database records	Yes	Yes
Pages you built, and the blocks on them	The database	Yes	Yes
Colours, fonts and spacing you changed in Styles	The database (a `wp_global_styles` record)	Yes	They belong to this theme
Templates and parts you edited in the Site Editor	The database	Yes	They belong to this theme
`theme.json`, `style.css`, patterns, fonts, the shipped templates	The theme's own files	Replaced	—

So: never edit the theme's files directly. Anything you want to keep goes in the Site Editor, in Styles, or in the child theme.

To update:

Back up. Always.
Update Table and Type Core first if the changelog says the plugin changed.
Update the theme — through the Envato Market plugin, or by uploading the new table-and-type.zip and letting WordPress replace the existing copy.
Check the version in this documentation's footer matches Appearance › Themes.

If a Site Editor template looks wrong after an update, it is because you had customised it and your copy is still being used. Appearance › Editor › Templates, open it, and use Reset to take the theme's new version.