Introduction
This article demonstrates how to enable/use the Custom Master Page changes in SharePoint 2010.
Step 1
To Enable Customization
First if we want to work/change the Master Pages in SharePoint 2010, the following features need to enabled:
Navigate to the landing page of your newly created site collection:
Click on "Site Actions" -> Click on "Site Collection Features" -> Enable "SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure"
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Step 2
![2.jpg]()
Step 3
We need to do the same thing at the site level also.
Click on "Site Actions" -> Click on "Manage site features" -> Enable "SharePoint Server Publishing"
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Step 4
Enable the feature at the site level:
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Step 5
Once we have enabled the features, we are able to see the Master Page option in Look and Feel.
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If the Master Page is already enabled, we can skip steps 1 to 4.
Step 6
Start-up we can refer this link for customizing the master page:
https://startermasterpages.codeplex.com/
If we get the following warning then that means the Master page may not be published correctly. We can follow the following solution steps.
Warning: The selected master page has no approved version. This site may appear to be broken to users without the view versions right in the Master Page Gallery.
Steps
- Click Site Actions –> Site Settings –> Modify All Site Settings
- Click Master pages and page layouts
- Click the down arrow next to your .master file
- If Check In is an option, click Check In
- Click OK
- Click the down arrow next to your .master file again
- Click Publish a Major Version
- Click OK
- Click the Down arrow next to your .master file
- Click Approve/reject
- Click the Radial Button next to Approved.
- Click OK.
Select your customized and published master page as shown below in the Site Settings page:
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The final output of Customized master pages may look like the following pages. It depends on our customization.
![7.jpg]()
Summary
Customizing the Master Page is an important step in SharePoint Portal development. For start-up we can use the Codeplex pages, based on our requirement we can customize the design.