SharePoint 2010 Themes
Themes in SharePoint 2010 have been simplified so that they really only change background colors and font types within a site. If you are familiar with creating themes in PowerPoint, Word, and Visio creating a SharePoint theme is very similar. To create your own custom theme simply click on Site Actions 
Site Settings, and then click on “Site Theme” within the look and feel section. This brings you to a new page, as shown in Figure 8-32.
Figure 8-32. SharePoint 2010 Site Theme creator page
On this page you can choose from a variety of predefined themes. Once you have chosen a theme, you can click on the “Preview” button to see what it would look like, without actually applying it to the site. You also have the option to reset all sub-sites to have the selected theme. If you want to create your own theme manually, you can simply start from an existing theme or click on Default (no theme), to start from scratch. To start creating your own theme, you just have to click on the color boxes next to the label “Select a Color”. This will bring up a dialog window, as shown in Figure 8-33.
Figure 8-33. SharePoint 2010 Theme dialog window color picker
You can type in a hex color or use the color picker on the left to choose your color. When you click on the “OK” button the list selector changes from “Default (no theme)” to “Custom”. Each time you choose a color you can preview what it will look with the new color choice. You can also change the font family used for heading fonts and body fonts by using the drop-downs on the right. Once you are happy with the look of your theme, simply just click Apply. The site theme will be applied and bring you back to the Site Settings page.
Note There is no way to save your manually created theme if it was created through the SharePoint interface.
If you go back to the Site Theme page, your custom applied theme will display as “Current theme (Custom)”. However, once you choose a different theme, your custom theme will be lost. To create your own custom theme you will need to have an office 2010 product like PowerPoint or word. If you have Word 2010 open up a new document and click on the “Page Layout” tab within the top ribbon. Then click on the colors drop down located on the left side of the ribbon and choose “Create new theme colors”. You will notice that the labels for these colors are the same as what you would see in the theme creator in SharePoint 2010. If you are using PowerPoint 2010, click on the Design Tab within the top Ribbon area, and then click on the colors drop-down. Choose the “create new theme colors” option, and you will get the same window as you would in Word 2010. Once you have chosen your colors, simply provide a name for your new theme, and click Save. Then choose the fonts drop-down and choose “Create new theme fonts”. Choose your fonts, give them a name, and then click Save. The theme effects are not used within SharePoint 2010, so you do not need to define those. Once you have finished selecting your theme colors and fonts, click on the themes button within the Ribbon, and choose “Save Current Theme”. Provide a unique name for your theme, and save it to your desktop. You can now import your saved THMX theme file into SharePoint 2010. Within your SharePoint site click on Site Actions Site Settings, and then click on Themes within the galleries section. In the Ribbon click on the documents tab, and then click on Upload Document. Browse to the location where you save the file, and then click on Open and Ok. This opens a new dialog box, where you can change the name of the theme and also provide a description for it. Next, click Save. Navigate back to the Site Settings page, and click on the Site theme link within the look and feel section. You should be able to see your custom theme within the list. Select your theme and then click on Apply.
Within the next section I will cover some basic tips when working with the new CSS3 properties.