---
title: "What are themes?"
slug: "themes"
tags: ["Explainer", "Site Administrator", "Developer"]
updated: 2025-07-22T10:52:18Z
published: 2025-07-22T11:18:01Z
canonical: "totara.help/themes"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What are themes?

A theme sets the appearance (colours, fonts, heading styles, block shapes, icons, etc.) for your Totara site via HTML, CSS and JavaScript. A theme can be applied to sites, users, courses, or category levels and (where responsive) can be used on different web-enabled devices.

A custom theme can not only change the appearance of your Totara significantly, it can be branded and styled to look similar to your organisation's website or other systems you use internally. You can read more [guidance on developing themes for Totara](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/Themes) in the developer documentation.

Totara also has a number of in-built themes which can be enabled and (depending on your selected theme) customised by a Site Administrator. We recommend using the [Inspire theme](/19/docs/inspire-theme-settings).

[YouTube video player](https://www.youtube.com/embed/hLs-uelbvBI?si=GLkKe-vWc3T7cWEJ)

## Element library

The **Element library** contains a set of sample elements that are used on your Totara site, which can help you to check that everything has been correctly themed. You can reach the element library by going to *Quick-access menu >* *Appearance > Themes > Element Library* (/elementlibrary/index.php).

There are options for a number of theme areas, including toolbars, icons, and a pattern library. There is more information for [SVG icons in our developer documentation](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/SVG+icons).

## Customising HTML email

You can read more about how to do this in our [developer documentation](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/Customising+HTML+email).

## Tui front end

To enhance the user experience we introduced a new front end in Totara 13 called Tui. You can learn more about how this works and how you can use it to customise your site in our [developer documentation](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/Tui+front-end+framework).

![Course badge](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/course-badge_dashboards-basic-theming(1).svg?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-01T14%3A47%3A30Z&se=2026-11-01T15%3A47%3A30Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=vlnWo4dEur4F4CSUcSnoAjlI73td4t4%2Bgi4NrbuCm5k%3D)The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using [Dashboards and basic theming](https://totara.community/mod/page/view.php?id=23503) in Totara. Here you can learn more on how to customise your site's appearance, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

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