SharePoint 2007 Dilemna - Which Do You Choose: Master Pages vs Themes?

A Master Pages vs. Themes: Which Do You Choose? by Heather Solomon about the differences between a theme and master pages. The key differences are :

Master Pages

• Can totally change the look of a site.
• Can hide SharePoint components that you don’t want to use.
• Will allow you to alter the layout of the page, in addition to changing the colors and images used in the site.
• Will not affect _layouts pages. You will need to use a workaround.

Themes

• Can re-skin the layout of a site to use different images and colors.
• Can only hide SharePoint components that can be controlled through hiding it in the CSS (display: none set on a class/ID).
• Affects _layouts pages.
• Can be used as an alternate CSS file application method, similar to alternate CSS setting in MOSS sites.
• Are installed on the web server unless you customize the file.

Its quite interesting sometimes that we can get so confused with all the features that SharePoint 2007 has to offer. There it is very important for the community as a whole to share the knowledge that we all gain and as soon as we gain it. Generally I use Themes for formatting changes and Master Pages for layout changes.

As the Dalai Lama puts its best: Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.