Title: What does this plugin do different than ACT Code export?
Last modified: October 24, 2019

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# What does this plugin do different than ACT Code export?

 *  Resolved [Matt2012](https://wordpress.org/support/users/matt2012/)
 * (@matt2012)
 * [6 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-plugin-do-different-than-act-code-export/)
 * I thought ACF already allows export of code – so what does this plugin add?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Phil Kurth](https://wordpress.org/support/users/philkurth/)
 * (@philkurth)
 * [6 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-plugin-do-different-than-act-code-export/#post-12063375)
 * Hi [@matt2012](https://wordpress.org/support/users/matt2012/),
 * ACF doesn’t generate template code – it only generates field group arrays which
   define the field groups themselves.
 * The ACF Theme Code plugin generates PHP for use in your templates. i.e; get_field(),
   the_field(), etc. It gives you the code you can drop into your templates and 
   use in amongst your markup.
 * ACF Theme Code Pro builds on top of this by generating the template code for 
   ACF fields available in ACF Pro. It also supports ACF Blocks and will generate
   block registration code.
 * Cheers,
    Phil
 *  Thread Starter [Matt2012](https://wordpress.org/support/users/matt2012/)
 * (@matt2012)
 * [6 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-plugin-do-different-than-act-code-export/#post-12063407)
 * So if I wanted to create a plugin called library for storing book CPTs I could
   use the ACF plugin to create the code needed for my plugin to let the user populate
   books in the admin dashboard. But your plugin would allow a theme developer to
   display those books in the frontend?
 *  Plugin Contributor [Ben Pearson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/benpearson/)
 * (@benpearson)
 * [6 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-plugin-do-different-than-act-code-export/#post-12093116)
 * Hi [@matt2012](https://wordpress.org/support/users/matt2012/).
 * Assuming custom fields have been created with the ACF plugin and data has been
   added to the fields, the ACF Theme Code plugin will generate the PHP code required
   by a theme to display the field data on the front end.
 * Please note this a developer tool for developers. Its primary purpose is to speed
   up the integration of ACF groups with a theme. It’s not a replacement for development
   knowledge.
 * I hope this helps.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘What does this plugin do different than ACT Code export?’ is closed to
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 * ![](https://ps.w.org/acf-theme-code/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=1458037)
 * [ACF Theme Code for Advanced Custom Fields](https://wordpress.org/plugins/acf-theme-code/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/acf-theme-code/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/acf-theme-code/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/acf-theme-code/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/acf-theme-code/unresolved/)
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 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Ben Pearson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/benpearson/)
 * Last activity: [6 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-plugin-do-different-than-act-code-export/#post-12093116)
 * Status: resolved