How to customize the Theme in SharePoint

Hi All,

Many times we require customizing theme of SharePoint site. For Creating Theme we first need to create one folder in the 12\TEMPLATE\THEMES Folder under 12 hive structure.

Copy any of the folders from that THEMES folder and give that new folder your appropriate unique name. Let’s say we give the new folder “XTheme” as name of it. Ultimately this folder will contains css files, images , color of font and all.

Now you need to find one file in the folder that you have copied, check for .inf file and rename it to the foldername.inf.

Now open this .inf file and give the same name to the to the title in the [info] and [titles] sections of the file.

Now modify and make the changes according to your business need. Colors, styles, images and everything.

You now also need to add one image especially for preview purpose when you will view this from Site Theme option.

Copy your image to the 12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES folder. Let’s say we call it as XTheme.gif

Now find one more file at this location 12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033 which is SPTHEMES.xml. You need to add this THEME as templates collection like this.

<Templates>
<TemplateID>XTheme</TemplateID>
<DisplayName> XTheme </DisplayName>
<Description>This is my new THEME</Description>
<Thumbnail>images/XTheme.gif</Thumbnail>
<Preview>images/XTheme.gif</Preview>
</Templates>

Now reset the IIS, I guess it will not require but then also just to be on safer side, reset the IIS and now you should be able to change the Site Theme to the your custom theme.

That’s it. Your job is done.