How to remove left column in PrestaShop?

Today I want to show you how to remove left column from your PrestaShop default theme. Merchants very often asks for this, and it's very basic modification. All what we have to change - is only one file - header.tpl located in the theme directory. Before we start, make sure that you have force compilation turned on and cache off (all of this you can check under the advanced preferences > performance tab in your store back office)

PrestaShop without left column

Remove left column in defalult PrestaShop theme

As i said we have to edit only one file located in your theme directory. This file name is: header.tpl. If you use default theme, the path to this file is: /themes/default/header.tpl. Open this file and search for left column html code, it looks like:

<div id="left_column" class="column grid_2 alpha">
         {$HOOK_LEFT_COLUMN}
</div>

Just remove this code. If you don't want to remove it - you can use smarty comments {* comment *} where the "comment" is a commented text. This method allows to "hide" the code, and this is the proper way of commenting code in smarty templates. Here is the code with comments (i highlighted comment tags)

{*
<div id="left_column" class="column grid_2 alpha">
         {$HOOK_LEFT_COLUMN}
</div>
*}

That's all. Your left column disappears from your theme now.

Increase the width of the center clumn

As you probably noticed you have also to change the width of the center column. By default it has width related to the website with 3 columns (left, center, right). It is also easy, in the same file search for:

<div id="center_column" class=" grid_5">

and change it to:

<div id="center_column" class=" grid_7">