Introduction to working with themes

Themes define the design of your presentations. You can change colors, fonts, images and layout rules. Themes are created by Confluence admins and Space Admins for their users.

It is a common best practice to provide a Global theme with your Corporate Identity for everyone.

Then, maybe add some special use cases as space-specific themes.

You can always base new themes on already existing themes - so space admins can copy the Global theme and make their own changes. And the Global theme can start as a copy of one of our default themes.

Global and space themes

As mentioned, themes exist on two different visibility levels:

• Global themes are available in every space of the whole Confluence instance. They can be edited by Confluence administrators.

• Space themes are specific to a certain Confluence space. They can be managed by Confluence admins and also space admins.

All space themes are also listed in the global theme list. This way, Confluence admins have a full overview over all existing themes and can edit them.

However, if you want to create a space theme, you have to do that via the Space Admin Area.

Finding the global themes list

You have to be Confluence admin to access the global theme editor.

Go to the “Settings” area (the cog icon on the top right) and look for “Presenter” in the left navigation pane, then click on “Themes”.

Finding the space theme list

Open the “Space Settings” of a space for which you have admin rights. Go to “Apps” or “App Links” > “Presenter”.

Which themes your users can choose from

When you open the Presentation dialog on any Confluence content, Slide Presenter collects the available themes as follows:

• It creates a list of all themes that belong to the current space

• Then, it adds all global themes to the list

You can exclude themes from this list by hiding them - learn how to do that here.

How do I…

Here are some common tasks and how to approach them.

… create a new theme for my organization?

You have to be a Confluence admin to do that. Go to the global theme editor. There, you can start a theme from scratch by clicking “Create theme”.

But many people find it easier to start with one of our default themes and modify it until it fits your style. To go that way, install one of the default themes and then rename and edit it.

You can also copy an already existing theme and modify that copy.

… create a specialized theme for a space?

Use space themes where necessary:

• For example, if you store content for the monthly board meeting in a space called “Board Meetings”, it makes perfect sense to create an extra shiny space theme in a special board meeting layout.

• Another frequent use case are Jira-heavy presentations. While normal presentations look better without 16:9 ratio, such table-heavy content is a good case for a separate Jira-Only theme.

You have to be space admin for the space in question. Go to the Space Theme Editor in the Space Admin Area. There, you have the same option like in the global theme editor. If you create or import a new theme, it will be bound to the space.

Good to know: If you copy a global theme in the space admin area, the copy will “live in the space” - the copy will be a space theme.

… move a space theme to global?

Go to the Global Theme Editor. In the “…” menu of the space theme, choose “Move theme to global themes”.

… move a global theme to a space?

1. Go to the Space Theme Editor in the Space Admin Area where you want to move the theme to. In the “…” menu of the global theme, choose “Copy global theme to this space”. The copy will be a space theme.

2. Head over to the Global Theme Editor and remove the unwanted global version of the theme.

… move or copy a space theme to another space?

There are two routes:

• You can either move the space theme to global and then copy it to the new target space, see above.

• The more straightforward way: Export the theme and import the ZIP file to the new target space.