Style - Themes

Impart a new style onto your site!

Google Sites provides a collection of more then 50 preconfigured Themes.

A Theme is a collection of style settings giving a website a particular look and feel - the fonts, sizes, colors, backgrounds, etc.

You can easily change the Theme your site uses.

How it works

When your site was initially created from a template, it acquired styles settings based on a Theme and perhaps some customizations.

Themes specify the appearance of most standard elements:  text, headings, gadgets, sidebar for font, size, color, background colors, etc. 
  • In the site, the content on pages and the Theme styles are largely separate from each other.  
  • This allows you to change Themes and see a new look to the site without needing to re-edit all the pages of the site.
  • Caveat - this assumes that editing your pages has relied mostly upon standard format tools (like headings), and haven't been using significant amounts of custom formatting.  Since the cases where you used custom formatting to make changes - such as different font, side and color - won't be altered when you switch Themes. Therefore you may need to revise all your custom formatting afterwards.
Additionally, if selecting a Theme isn't sufficient, Google also allows you to customize many specific style settings. Customizing Themes is covered as an advanced skill.

This is Google Site's alternative to providing you the ability to prepare CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) files.

Change Themes

To select a Theme go to:  More actions -> Manage site -> Themes, Colors and Fonts
  • There's a drop down of 'Base theme' options
  • Review the Themes available to select one
  • Click Save
Follow up:
  • Walk through your site to verify the each page looks suitable in the new style.  In particular watch for:
    • Have items shifted slightly, since different fonts and sizes could mean that line breaks are in new places…
    • Any custom formatting - if you had any custom formatting of font, sizes and colors, the former customization may be awkward in the new Theme and need revision.

Related Items

There are some configurable items in Edit SIte Layout that also impact the look and feel of the site.
  • Header Logo, and Header settings, Site width, and Sidebar settings
  • Learn more at on the Edit Site Layout page.

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