# Customize the Appearance (/docs/guide/styling)



You can change a map's appearance through two entry points: **themes** and **formatting**. A theme switches the whole map's colors, shapes, and line styles all at once; formatting changes the look of only the topics you've selected.

## Choose a Theme [#choose-a-theme]

A theme is an appearance preset for the whole map. It switches colors, shapes, line thickness, and more all together.

1. With a map open, open the Inspector from the toggle button in the top right
2. Select the **Layout** tab at the top of the Inspector
3. Open the theme dropdown at the very top. Each entry has a thumbnail (a sample of its background and accent colors)
4. Choose the theme you want

Your choice is applied **immediately**. There's no need to confirm or apply it separately. If you don't like the result, ⌘Z (Undo) reverts it as a single action.

The theme dropdown lets you choose from the built-in themes **Sapling**, **Aurora**, and **Sketchbook**.

New maps use **Sapling** by default. Maps imported from iThoughts (`.itmz`) keep whatever theme they had on import; the default theme isn't applied to them.

Switching themes preserves any formatting you've changed on individual topics (described below).

## Change a Topic's Appearance from the Style Tab [#change-a-topics-appearance-from-the-style-tab]

The Style tab changes the appearance of **only the topics you've selected**. It doesn't include map-wide settings.

1. Select the topic(s) whose appearance you want to change (multiple selection is supported)
2. Open the **Style** tab in the Inspector

The Style tab has the following fields.

| Field         | What it controls                                                      |
| ------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Shape         | The topic's shape (rectangle, rounded, oval, circle, etc.)            |
| Fill          | The topic's background color                                          |
| Text Color    | The color of the topic's text                                         |
| Font          | The font family                                                       |
| Size          | The font size                                                         |
| B / I / U / S | Bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough for the title (macOS only) |

When multiple topics are selected, a field shows its shared value if all selected topics agree, or "—" if they don't. Changing a value here applies it to every selected topic at once.

The Shape, Fill, Text Color, Font, and Size rows each have a reset button (an arrow icon) that restores the theme's default.

## How Color Rows Work [#how-color-rows-work]

Rows for choosing a color — Fill, Text Color, and Boundary Line color (see [Layout Settings](/docs/guide/layout-settings)) — share a common layout.

* On the right side of the row, a round chip shows the current color, next to a label showing where that color comes from
  * **Custom**: you chose this color yourself
  * **Theme**: it's using whatever color the current theme assigns, unchanged
  * **Auto**: there's no explicit setting; the color was calculated automatically from context
* Tapping the row (clicking, on macOS) opens more detail, offering three choices:
  1. **Automatic (Theme Color)** — clears the custom setting and reverts to a color based on the theme and context
  2. Choose from the list of swatches
  3. **Custom…** — specify any color you like

<Callout title="The Boundary Line Color Sometimes Has No Effect">
  Many themes, including Sapling, render a boundary (the frame around a branch) as a fill rather than a line. In these themes the Boundary Line color control is disabled with an explanatory note — what you actually see is a color automatically calculated from the fill color of the topics inside the boundary. Switch to a theme that draws boundaries as lines, and the control becomes available again.
</Callout>