Beginning SharePoint® 2007 Administration: Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 and Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007

13.3. Extended Design

The previous section described several modifications that are easy to do on any SharePoint site page. In this section, you will see more advanced modifications that SharePoint Designer allows you to do.

13.3.1. Managing Site Themes

The look and feel of a SharePoint site is completely controlled by its Master Page, which uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define how the site looks. But WSS sites also have another technique called site themes to define what fonts, sizes, and colors are to be used by different parts of a page. By using preconfigured site themes, a team site owner can easily change its look and feel directly using the web browser. Using the link Site Actions Site Settings, and click on Site theme in the Look and Feel section the site owner can select between 18 different themes. Note that some of them are especially high contrast themes for visually impaired users, and these are hard to see for people with normal eyesight.

13.3.1.1. Using SharePoint Designer Themes

Site themes are just another way of using CSS files in WSS site, which was introduced in previous versions of SharePoint. Today when WSS 3.0 can use Master Pages, themes may be less essential, but still only site themes change the color setting for the complete page, while Master Pages affect just the site chrome, that is, the navigation, Quick Launch, and logotypes of the page. ...