When you move a site from Loupely Canvas Lite to the full theme, almost everything comes with you untouched. Your posts, pages, categories, tags, menus, and media all live in WordPress itself, not in the theme, so switching themes never touches them. There are 2 things stored differently between the editions, and the full theme helps you carry both across: your global header and footer, and the way the blog is set up.
What carries over on its own
Your content was never part of the theme. Posts, pages, categories, tags, menus, and uploaded media are stored by WordPress and stay exactly where they are when you switch. The moment you activate the full theme, your posts are still there and still published. There is nothing to export, import, or rebuild for any of it.
Your header and footer
Lite saves the global header and footer through the Customizer. The full theme keeps them on its own settings screen instead, under Appearance, Loupely Canvas. Because the 2 editions store them in different places, the full theme cannot see Lite’s versions automatically, so right after you switch, your header and footer can look like they have disappeared.
The full theme handles this for you. When it finds a header and footer that Lite saved, it shows a notice in 2 spots: the Themes screen and the Loupely Canvas settings screen. Click Import header and footer and they drop straight into the full theme’s boxes. If you would rather start fresh, click No thanks and the offer goes away for good. The import only ever fills boxes that are empty. If you have already set a header or footer in the full theme, it is left alone, so nothing you have done gets overwritten.
Import before you remove Lite
The full theme reads the header and footer from what Lite saved, so the offer works whether you switch today or come back to it weeks later. The one thing to watch: deleting the Lite theme clears what it saved. Import first, or keep Lite installed until you have brought your header and footer across.
How the blog is set up
This is the part that works differently between the editions. In Lite, the blog is fixed. The theme renders your posts with its own built in layout, and there is nothing for you to configure. It just works, which is the whole point of Lite.
In the full theme, the blog is yours to shape. You write the markup for how a post looks, and tokens stand in for each post’s own values: {title}, {permalink}, {date}, {author}, {excerpt}, {content}, {thumbnail}, {categories}, and {tags}, plus author details, a comment count and link with {comment_count} and {comments_link}, and {post_class} for styling a card by its category, tag, or sticky state. It is the same passthrough idea as the rest of the theme: you control the markup, and the theme renders it full width without getting in the way. With those boxes left empty, the full theme falls back to a plain default so your posts still render. To skip the bare look and start from a real structure, load the starter layout.
What else the full theme adds
The full theme also gives the header and footer their own tokens, which Lite does not have: a logo with {logo}, a menu with {menu:header} or {menu:footer}, and site values like {site_title} and {year}. And it adds a Site basics section that gathers your logo, favicon, and menus in one place. None of it is required, and your hand coded header and footer keep working untouched, but it is there when you want WordPress to manage a piece instead of your markup. For the details, see using tokens in the header and footer and site basics: logo, favicon, and menus.
Load a starter blog layout
Go to Appearance, Loupely Canvas, and find the Blog templates section. While the Post card and Single post boxes are empty, you will see a Load a starter blog layout button. It fills both boxes with example markup that is already wired to the tokens, so you have a working structure to edit instead of a blank box. It follows the same rule as the import: it only fills empty boxes. If you have already written your own Post card or Single post markup, the button steps aside and leaves your work alone.
The starter gives you the structure and the class names. The styling lives in the Head code box, the same place you would style anything else on the site, so the look is yours to add. The Post card is what shows for each post in a list, like your blog page and the category, tag, and date archives, so it uses {excerpt} for a short summary. The Single post is the full article view, so it uses {content}.
Moving a site, start to finish
A typical move looks like this. Install and activate the full theme, from loupelycanvas.com or its GitHub release; your posts and pages are already in place. On the notice, click Import header and footer, or set them yourself under Appearance, Loupely Canvas. In the Blog templates section, click Load a starter blog layout, then edit the Post card and Single post markup until they look the way you want. Add your blog styling in the Head code box. Once everything you want is across, remove Lite if you like.
Good to know
Every step only fills empty boxes, so nothing you have already set is overwritten. Import your header and footer before deleting Lite, since deleting it clears what Lite saved. This is all about settings and appearance. Your content was never in the theme, so it never needs migrating.
