Customize theme colors

Customize theme (colors)

Available in version 3.6 or later.

You can change colors of SumatraPDF UI by creating a custom theme using Themes advanced setting.

To create a theme:

Navigate to Settings / Advanced Options... menu (or Ctrl + K Command Palette, type adv to narrow down and select Advanced Options... command)
This will open SumatraPDF-settings.txt text file using your default text editor
Scroll down to the bottom to find Themes array and add new shortcut definitions

Example of customization:

Themes [
    [
        Name = My Dark Theme
        TextColor = #bac9d0
        BackgroundColor = #263238
        ControlBackgroundColor = #263238
        LinkColor = #8aa3b0
        DisabledTextColor = #6b7c85
        DarkerTextColor = #8aa3b0
        HotBackgroundColor = #324047
        EdgeColor = #37474f
        HotEdgeColor = #546e7a
        DisabledEdgeColor = #1e272c
        ErrorBackgroundColor = #5c2b2b
        NotificationBackgroundColor = #2e3c43
        NotificationHighlightColor = #455a64
        NotificationHighlightTextColor = #eceff1
        ColorizeControls = true
    ]
    [
        Name = Dracula
        TextColor = #f8f8f2
        BackgroundColor = #282a36
        ControlBackgroundColor = #44475a
        LinkColor = #8be9fd
        DisabledTextColor = #6272a4
        DarkerTextColor = #6272a4
        HotBackgroundColor = #565a73
        EdgeColor = #6272a4
        HotEdgeColor = #bd93f9
        DisabledEdgeColor = #343746
        ErrorBackgroundColor = #ff5555
        NotificationBackgroundColor = #343746
        NotificationHighlightColor = #bd93f9
        NotificationHighlightTextColor = #f8f8f2
        ColorizeControls = true
    ]
]

The above will provide you with custom themes such as My Dark Theme and Dracula. Built-in themes already ship with these colors filled in, including Solarized, Dracula, One Dark, Monokai, Nord, GitHub Dark, Catppuccin Mocha, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, Night Owl, Ayu, and Palenight.

Meaning of the parameters:

Required / base colors

TextColor and BackgroundColor are for main window color and color of text.
ControlBackgroundColor is for background of Windows controls (buttons, window frame, menus, list controls etc.).
LinkColor is a color for links. Typically it’s blue.
ColorizeControls should be true. If false we won’t try to change colors of standard windows controls (menu, toolbar, buttons etc.) so a lot of UI will not respect theme colors.

Document page colors (`DocumentColorsFollowTheme`) #

UI themes only recolor chrome (menus, tabs, toolbars). Separately, document pages (PDF, XPS, DjVu, EPUB, MOBI, FB2, comics, images, and other MuPDF-rendered formats) can follow the theme via the advanced setting DocumentColorsFollowTheme:

Value	Effect
`off` (default)	Keep the document’s own page colors.
`smart`	Recolor text and page background using `FixedPageUI.TextColor` / `FixedPageUI.BackgroundColor` when set, otherwise the current theme’s text/background. Photos and other images stay as in the file — preferred for dark reading.
`legacy`	Also recolor images (same idea as older invert / colorize behavior before 3.7). Use when you want a fully monochrome page.

How to change it:

Settings → Theme… or Settings → Make Document Colors Follow Theme (command palette / CmdSetDocumentColorsFollowTheme) for a drop-down including legacy.
Advanced settings: DocumentColorsFollowTheme = off / smart / legacy.

Shift + I (CmdInvertColors) is a different thing: it swaps the page colors for the rest of the session, whatever DocumentColorsFollowTheme and FixedPageUI are set to, and is not saved to the settings file.

This is independent of Theme = .... You can use a dark UI theme with DocumentColorsFollowTheme = off (original white PDF pages) or a light UI with smart page recoloring.

Optional UI colors (leave empty to derive from the base colors; set them when a warm or tinted TextColor would make derived disabled/hover colors look wrong — e.g. Dracula’s near-white foreground)

DisabledTextColor — grayed / disabled labels and buttons
DarkerTextColor — secondary / muted text
HotBackgroundColor — hovered control background
EdgeColor / HotEdgeColor / DisabledEdgeColor — control borders
ErrorBackgroundColor — error surfaces
NotificationBackgroundColor / NotificationHighlightColor / NotificationHighlightTextColor — in-app notification tips

Now, once you save the text file above, there are three main ways to choose a theme that you had created:

By changing the value of Theme = in the SumatraPDF-settings.txt which we accessed above (e.g. Theme = Solarized Dark). Or,
By launching the Command Palette (Ctrl + k), and then typing theme (afterwards, select the desired theme from the list). Or,
By navigating to Settings / Theme and then choosing a theme.

SumatraPDF documentation

Customize theme (colors)

Document page colors (DocumentColorsFollowTheme) #

Document page colors (`DocumentColorsFollowTheme`) #