Custom design for sharepoint online

Question

Hopefully you guys can help me, as I haven't be able to find any concrete answer to my question.

I'm new to sharepoint and I would like to make an intranet for a company. Sharepoint online team site seems to have all the functionality I need (files sharing, and news). However I have some specifics needs for the design.

I saw I could choose a theme in the options but it's not enough, I've a custom design in PSD to integrate. I tried to edit a master page with sharepoint designer but it's not easy, the html markup is bloated with some sharepoint code, and it's hard to modify anything.

I would like to know if it's even possible to customize a sharepoint online team site and how to do it, or if I'm going in the wrong direction.

I saw on the documentation that for publishing sites(public sites) you could convert an HTML design into a master page but I can't find this option for team site...

Any idea? Thank you

Answer 1

You can customize a design for SharePoint Online, and like you found it works really well for Publishing Sites. You can turn on publishing on your team site, and get that functionality for converting your HTML to a master page (it's not THAT straight forward.) See Site Collection Features, enable publishing, then Site Features and enable it there.

The HTML for a master page is pretty darn close, but there is still a lot of SharePoint elements in there. The HTML version is much easier to edit and manage in comparison to the master page. It is not as simple as throwing up an HTML page and calling it a day. Be aware of the SP items in the HTML page and you should be good to go.