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Installation

Still using Contao 4? You find the installation guide here.

Contao 4 installation guide
Note

The demo can only be imported into an empty Contao installation.

Note

If you have already created content on your site, see the following guide: Installation into an existing Contao installation.

Installation in Contao 5

Open the Contao Manager: www.your-domain.com/contao-manager.phar.php. In the Discover tab, enter CONVERT Theme and click Add.

 
In the Packages tab you should now see a new package to be installed. Click the button Apply changes at the bottom to start the installation.

 
Once the installation is finished, click Update database.

 
Run all database migrations and click Continue. The first step creates all folders and files in the file manager.

 
Then the missing fields are created in the database.

 
In the last step the demo data is imported.

Done! When you open your site, you should already see the demo. The theme comes with 2 demo variants, each with its own website root.

 
 

Notes

Error: This page isn’t working / The page redirected you too many times

Edit the website root and set the protocol under URL settings to http:// or https://, depending on how your site should be accessed.

Error: imagick not installed

If the error imagick not installed occurs with PHP 8.0, you can solve it with an adjustment in config.yml and clearing the cache afterwards. More information in the PDIR blog post (German)

Nov 7, 2026 Spare Zeit bei allen Webprojekten mit pdir+

Subsections of Installation

Contao 4

Note

The theme can only be installed into an empty Contao installation and is compatible with Contao 4.4 or higher.

Tip

The following steps are only necessary for the first installation, not for an update of the theme. To update the theme, simply use the Contao Manager. Then open the install tool and update the database. A database backup never hurts!


Steps

1 / Install the CONVERT Theme Bundle

First open the Contao Manager at the following URL: www.your-domain.com/contao-manager.phar.php. Select Discover, enter CONVERT Theme in the search field and add the package CONVERT Theme.

Then switch to Packages, enter the version ^1.7 via the gear icon and start the installation of the theme with the button Apply changes. With the latest version the Contao Manager would otherwise install version 2.x, which is only compatible with Contao 5 and later.

2 / Update the database

Then open the install tool and update the database. You also have to create an admin user account in the install tool.

You can reach the install tool in the Contao Manager via the menu item Tools or at the URL: www.your-domain.com/contao/install.

3 / Synchronize the theme files and empty tl_files

Log in to the back end with the user account you created and select the menu item CONVERT Theme Setup under CONTAO-THEMES-NET in the left navigation. Then click the button Synchronize theme files. This creates all files in the file manager under the folder convert and copies the SQL files for the database import into the templates folder.

Then empty the database table ’tl_files’ by clicking the button Empty table ’tl_files’. This step must be carried out before importing the database.

Note

Emptying the tl_files table deletes the image references. This is only necessary for the first installation of the theme.

Synchronize theme files and empty tl_files Synchronize theme files and empty tl_files

4 / Import the database

Now open the install tool. Under the tab “Import a template” you can import an .sql file from the templates directory. Select the file for your Contao version and tick Do not truncate tables. Then click Import a template.

Besides the landing page demo, the CONVERT theme also comes with an app demo (SQL files starting with convert_theme_contao_app_demo) with different content.

If you chose the minimal Contao installation in the Contao Manager (without news, calendar, newsletter, comments, listing, FAQ), select the SQL file named minimal_installtool.sql.

If the database was imported successfully, a message should appear that a template was imported, as shown in the screenshot.

Import the database Import the database

Then switch back to the Contao back end, select the menu item System maintenance and recreate the symlinks by ticking Recreate the symlinks and then clicking the button Purge data.

Recreate the symlinks Recreate the symlinks

6 / Settings

Under Advanced CSS settings, select the class set spectre.json.

Select the Spectre set Select the Spectre set

Notes:

Error: This page isn’t working / The page redirected you too many times

Edit the website root and set the protocol under URL settings to http:// or https://, depending on how your site should be accessed.

Error: imagick not installed

If the error imagick not installed occurs with PHP 8.0, you can solve it with an adjustment in config.yml and clearing the cache afterwards. More information in the PDIR blog post (German)