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Why do you need to install wordpress locally when you have your blog online? Personally, this is the first thing I researched when i decided to do blogging seriously, for several reasons:

• I am new to PHP and I don’t want to mess with my live blog while messing with my theme /template’s code.
• I can still create draft posts with the look and feel of my online blog even if I’m not connected to the internet (for some reason)
• I can test and debug my blog’s template whenever I want
• And several other reasons hehehe

If your blog is hosted on a free host and you’re just using a subdomain, and do not have full control over your blog platform’s files, definitely this post will not be that helpful to you. Nevertheless, if you plan to host your own blog site, consider this as your future reference. But still, if you prefer to have a local version of your blog, you may do so.

Requirements:

• Basic Technical Knowledge, Yes for Techie Girls and Techie Guys only hahaha, you don’t need to be an expert though, since I myself is not an expert on the technology used when i started blogging. Basically, all you need to possess is the knowledge on basic things such as installing and the ability to figure out things easily when ask to upload files on your own host, things like that (and if you think that I am not using some ‘alien words’)
• A web server, in this case we will use Apache (widely used)
• Of Course PHP
• And definitely a database, we will going to use MySQL.
• An optional FTP client software

Don’t worry I won’t be asking you to install everything individually, there’s always a simpler way of course. Illustrated just to give you an idea on what’s being used

Ok let’s begin

XAMPP Installation

1. Download XAMPP at http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html, just select the distribution specific for the Operating System you’re using. I suggest that you choose the installer version since its complete and easy to install.

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start.

Source: http://www.apachefriends.org

2. Install XAMPP. If you opt for the installer version (which is the easiest), just double click and follow the instructions on the screen. If you encounter any problems upon installation (which I think very rare to happen), just visit apachefriends.org site for installation assistance.
3. When the installation is complete, you will find XAMPP under Start -> Programs -> Apache Friends -> XAMPP. You can use the XAMPP Control Panel to start/stop all server and also install/uninstall services.

   

4. As of the moment, we only need the Apache and MySQL services, so just click the [Start] Button corresponding to the two services. A ‘Running’ indicator will be displayed on the side of the services when they are successfully started.
5. After Apache starts, open the URL http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1 . The XAMPP Welcome screen should be displayed. Now that XAMPP is successfully installed, we are ready to go to the next step.

    

   

Database Creation

Since WordPress requires a database to store your blog details, posts etc, you must create a database on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.

1. Go to http://localhost. Just click on the phpMyAdmin option located on the left side of the XAMPP welcome screen.
2. The PhpMyAdmin screen should be displayed. Just type the name of the new database, (in this case I use mytestdb) in the ‘Create New Database’ field. Select the option UTF-8 Unicode_ci on the collation dropdown list.

    

   

3. Just click the [Create] Button to create the new database.
4. For testing and illustration purposes, lets use the default user ‘root’ with no password.
5. Now that we already have what we need, let’s proceed with the WordPress installation.

WordPress Installation

Note: Just change the slash and backslash notation depending on your operating system

1. Download the latest version of wordpress located at http://wordpress.org/download/
2. Extract/Unzip WordPress at C:/xampp/htdocs/ directory
3. You should now have the ‘wordpress’ folder under C:/xampp/htdocs/
4. Browse through C:/xampp/htdocs/wordpress/ directory and open wp-config-sample.php file using any text editor.
5. Replace the default value for the database, username and password as ilustrated below:

   

6. Save the modified file as wp-config.php under the same folder
7. On your browser, go to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php. Just follow the instructions on the screen and you all set.
8. After the installation, you can now access your offline blog at http://localhost/wordpress/.
9. If you wish to change the default theme, just copy your favorite theme at C:/ xampp/ htdocs/ wordpress/ wp-content/ themes/ directory and update the theme in your admin panel (’Change your site’s look or theme’ option)

Basically that’s it!