How to get Custom SharePoint Theme for your Modern SharePoint site

A couple of months ago, Microsoft introduced new branding and theming capabilities for the Modern SharePoint sites in Office 365. It came up with eight attractive SharePoint themes which were in-built and you could simply choose any one and apply. But as a SharePoint administrator it also provided the ability to create your own customt theme using the office UI Fabric Theme Generator.

This attractive SharePoint Site theming option allows user to apply custom or default themes to all modern sites (communication or team sites) to deliver new engaging and familiar looks.

The process is extremely simple. In this article below, we are sharing the step by step process of using the theme generator using PowerShell.

1. Go to https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric

2. Then go to Components>>Customizations>>Colors

(https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric#/customizations/colors)

3. As we proceed further to create our custom theme, we can choose from various color options available under:

a) Primary color theme

b) Body text color

c) Body background color

4. From the color palette choose a specific shade for each one of them; these colors will determine what your custom theme will look like.

5. Copy the PowerShell generated in the Output.

6. Now open PowerShell and connect to your SharePoint Tenant. To Open PowerShell, go to your Windows menu and search for “Windows PowerShell ISE”– Run as administrator.

7. To run the PowerShell cmdlets for theme management, you must do the following:

Download and install the SharePoint Online Management Shell. If you already have a previous version of the shell installed, uninstall it first and then install the latest version.

8. To connect PowerShell with your SharePoint online tenant-

Run “Connect-SPOService” command in your PowerShell.

9. Next, It will ask for SharePoint tenant URl where you want to add the custom color theme.

10. Enter your Microsoft account credentials if prompted.

11. Write “$themecontoso = “ and paste copied PowerShell script

12. Now again write “$themecontoso” at the end of the script and press enter and you will find that the values are assigned to variables.

13. To add this theme, write the below command, and assign a proper name to your theme so it is easily identified.

a) For Light colored theme the command will be: Add-SPOTheme –Name “Theme Name” –Palette $themecontoso –IsInverted $false

b) And for Dark colored theme the command will be : Add-SPOTheme –Name “Theme Name” –Palette $themecontoso –IsInverted $fTrue

14. To Apply the theme:

a) Open your modern site and click on the cog icon

b) Click on “Change the Look”

c) Select your custom theme and click Apply

15. Your custom theme will start appearing on the right side panel.

SharePoint site theming: PowerShell cmdlets

The following cmdlets are available for managing site themes from PowerShell:

a) Add-SPOTheme – Creates a new custom theme, or overwrites an existing theme to modify its settings.

b) Get-SPOTheme – Retrieves settings for an existing theme.

c) Remove-SPOTheme – Removes a theme from the theme gallery.

d) Set-SPOHideDefaultThemes – Specifies whether the default themes should be available.

e) Get-SPOHideDefaultThemes – Queries the current SPOHideDefaultThemes setting.

Try on your own or ask for help!

So, isn’t it simple to create your own branded SharePoint  themes which can be easily applied all over your Modern SharePoint tenant? Just try the simple steps and let us know how it went.

Even if you face any challenges, the Beyond Intranet SharePoint Consulting team of expert developers is always there to help. Connect with us at [email protected] and we will respond to you as soon as we can.