Custom themes

General

Since JabRef 5.2 it is possible to use custom themes. In Preferences > Appearance > Visual theme the themes in general can be changed. Themes are just CSS files defining the look of the UI.

  • Light Theme: The default theme is the light theme (Base.css).

  • Dark Theme: There is an alternative dark theme (Dark.css) which is based on Base.css and just overwrites the colors.

  • Custom Theme: In Preferences > Appearance > Visual theme > Custom theme there can be set a custom theme by simply selecting a custom CSS (based on Base.css or Dark.css), for instance:

You can find a collection of user contributed themes at https://themes.jabref.org.

Selection of Useful CSS selectors

UI elementCSS selector

preview box

#previewBody

{} biblatex source tab

.code-area

text in {} biblatex source tab

.code-area .text

Examples

Known bugs

  • #8523: On Windows 10, it is not possible to use fonts that were installed user-wide in the CSS, only system-wide fonts are working. A workaround to use fonts that are not installed system-wide is to include the font file via @font-face.