Installing, Using and Updating Publii Themes

Themes in Publii define the overall look of your site; they decide the layout of posts and pages, and how the homepage looks. Publii comes with one theme preinstalled: the Simple theme, which is used by default.

Below you will find more information on how to view, download and install the various Publii themes available via the Marketplace.

Using the Publii Marketplace

The Publii Marketplace is the central hub where users can download a selection of free and premium themes and plugins for Publii. On initial installation, Publii includes only one free theme, Simple, and no plugins. Should you wish to use a different theme that better suits your site's needs or install a plugin that expands the feature set of your website, then the Publii Marketplace is where you can find it.

After clicking the Themes option in the Three-Dot Menu, the Themes section of Publii will be opened. Here you can see any themes that you currently have installed in your theme library. To go to the Publii Marketplace, click on the Get more themes box; it will be the first box in the list of themes. This will open your browser to the Publii Marketplace.

The homepage of the Marketplace displays a selection of themes and plugins; from here, you can click on the Browse all themes or Browse all plugins links to open the Theme Marketplace or Plugin Marketplace respectively.

Viewing and Downloading a Theme

After opening the Publii Marketplace, click on Browse all themes to see the full range of available themes. From here, you can click on each theme to be taken to the description page, which provides details of the specific features included with the theme.

In addition, each theme includes a Live Preview option, which will allow you to see how the theme looks on a live site. To view the demo page, click on the Live Preview button. Within the demo page you can use the main menu to explore examples of the layouts and options available in the theme.

To download a free theme, click on the Download button. For a premium theme, use Buy now to purchase it, then download the theme from your Marketplace account. Each download will be in .zip format, but there's no need to extract it; Publii will be able to handle extracting and installing the theme for you.

Installing a Theme

After the download is complete, you will need to install the theme via the Publii interface. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open the Publii application, and click on the Three-Dot Menu icon in the top-right of the main app window, then click Themes.
2. You will see a list of your installed themes. On this page, click on the Install theme button at the top. This will open your file browser.
3. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the .zip theme file from the Publii Marketplace, and select it.
4. Publii will now install the theme and add it to your theme library.

Your theme is now installed. You can also install a theme by dragging its ZIP file onto the Themes screen.

Activating the Theme

When a new theme is installed in Publii, it is added to your theme library. It isn't automatically applied to your websites; each site uses its own copy of a theme.

Before changing themes on an existing website, create a backup. Your posts, pages and their images will remain, but the new theme will use its own settings. Images and other files added through the previous theme's settings may be deleted, and switching back will not restore deleted files. The confirmation dialog includes a Go to backups link.

To use the theme on your active site, follow these steps:

1. In the Publii app, click on Site Settings in the left-sidebar menu.
2. Under Basic settings, open the drop-down list next to Theme.
3. In the list of themes, you will see your newly-installed theme in the In your theme library (copied to this site on save) section. Select it, then click on Save settings. If you are switching from another theme, review the confirmation and click Change theme to continue.
4. Your new theme is now activated; preview your site and you'll be able to see how it looks. Synchronize your website when you are ready to publish the change.

If you are happy with your new theme and wish to continue using it, you can remove the previously-used theme's local copy to free up space on your computer. To do so, open the three-dot Theme options menu next to the Theme field, choose Remove [theme name] from this site…, then confirm with Remove theme. Only themes that are not currently active can be removed this way.

Removing the theme from a site does not remove its copy from your theme library. If it is still in the library, you can select it again from In your theme library (copied to this site on save). Unused local theme copies do not add extra themes to your published website; Publii uses the active theme to generate it.

Translating a Theme

Publii includes support for language .json files and overrides that can be used to translate non-content areas of a theme, such as button labels. The main language file for each theme can be found in the respective theme folder wherever your Publii files are stored, such as themes/themeName/themeName.lang.json. The copy installed on a website is in sites/siteName/input/themes/themeName/themeName.lang.json. To translate the theme, an override version of the language file with the same name must be created in the sites/siteName/input/languages folder (the languages folder may need to be manually created first). This file will then be used as an override for the base language file.

For a full step-by-step guide to theme translation, and a breakdown of how it works, visit the Publii translation guide article.

Changing to a different theme

Swapping to a new theme is straightforward; open the Site Settings screen again and choose your new theme from the Theme list. If you want to try out a completely new theme, you may use the Publii Theme Marketplace to download and install it; it will then appear under In your theme library (copied to this site on save). If you've already switched between multiple themes on your current site, you'll notice that your previously-installed themes appear under Installed on this site. This allows for quick switching between local copies without copying the theme files from the library again. Click Save settings and confirm with Change theme to apply your selection.

Updating your theme

With new features and theme updates being added to Publii regularly, keeping your theme up to date helps you receive compatibility fixes and improvements.

You can download the updated file from the Publii Theme Marketplace when new theme updates are available. For a premium theme, use the downloads section of your Marketplace account.

• Open Publii and choose Themes from the Three-Dot Menu.
• Install the updated theme by dragging and dropping the new ZIP package onto this screen, or by using Install theme.

Once installed, the new version is available in your theme library. You’ll still need to apply it to each website that uses the theme.

To activate the updated theme:

1. Open Site Settings for your site.
2. Next to the Theme field, click Update to v.[version]. Alternatively, open the theme list and select the newer version under Update available.
3. Press Save settings to apply the update to this website.

If you use local theme overrides, Publii will ask you to check that they are compatible with the new version. After saving, preview your website and synchronize it to publish the update.

Uninstalling a theme

If you no longer need a theme in your library, you can delete it from the Themes screen. This removes the library copy; copies already installed on your websites are kept.

To delete a theme from your library:

1. Open the Three-Dot Menu and click Themes.
2. Find the theme you want to delete and click the Trash icon next to its name.
3. Confirm the deletion by clicking Delete theme.

To remove an unused copy from a particular website instead, use Site Settings > Theme options > Remove [theme name] from this site…. Switch to another theme first if the one you want to remove is currently active.