Create Themes for SharePoint 2010 Using Word 2010

Collaboration is a big theme these days at Microsoft, and you need look no further than SharePoint 2010. You can now quickly create themes for SharePoint 2010 by using Microsoft Word 2010.

The concept of themes were introduced in SharePoint 2007, and they are now given a different touch in SharePoint 2010. In this tip you will see how to quickly create a theme using Word 2010 and then import and apply it to SharePoint 2010 site(s).

1. Open Microsoft Word 2010 and create a new file. You can also use existing Word file.

2. Select Page Layout, Colors and select Grayscale, see the figure below.

3. Select Page Layout, Fonts and select Office Classic 2 as shown in the figure below.

4. Our basic theme is now ready (you can do other modifications but better to keep it simple for now). To save the theme file (.thmx) select Page Layout, Themes, Save Current Theme.

5. On the Save Current Theme dialog enter My Custom Theme for the File Name. This is shown in figure below.

6. For importing the theme file into SharePoint 2010 browse to the site collection and go to Site Settings Page. Click on the Themes links present under Galleries section, this will open the Themes Gallery page.

7. Click on Documents Tabs and select Upload Document as shown in figure below.

8. On the Upload Document dialog browse and select My Custom Theme.thmx file that you had created earlier.

9. Your new theme is now available in Themes Gallery and ready for use.

10. In order to apply this new theme to the site, browse to Site Settings page and select Site Theme link present under Looks and Feel section as shown below.

11. On the Site Theme page, select My Custom Theme as shown below.

12. You have an option to apply theme only to the current site or to the current site and all its sub sites, you can choose either option. In this example later is selected as shown below. Finally click on Apply button to save and apply your changes.

13. My Custom Theme is now applied to current site and all its sub sites. You can browse to various pages in the site to see the theme in action. Following is the default home page of the site with this theme applied.