Customized Master Pages in SharePoint 2010

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"



Step 2


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"



Step 4

Enable the feature at the site level:



Step 5

Once we have enabled the features, we are able to see the Master Page option in Look and Feel.

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If we get the following warning then that means the Master page may not be published correctly.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:




The final output of Customized master pages may look like the following pages. It depends on our customization.