How to Apply a SharePoint Look Book Design to an Existing Site
Question details
The user wants to apply a SharePoint Look Book template design to an already existing SharePoint site, but the default provisioning process only creates new sites.
- Product
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Redesigning an existing intranet site using templates from the SharePoint Look Book.
- Observed behavior
- SharePoint Look Book templates cannot be provisioned directly onto an existing site collection through the standard Look Book interface.
Ensure you have SharePoint administrator permissions and the latest PnP PowerShell module installed on your system to extract and apply site templates.
Extract and Apply Look Book Design via PnP PowerShell
Since you cannot provision a Look Book template directly to an existing site, create a new site with the template and use PnP PowerShell to copy the design over.
The SharePoint Look Book service provisions templates by creating entirely new site collections. To update an existing intranet site, you must extract the provisioning template from a newly generated Look Book site and apply it to your target site using PnP PowerShell commands.
Go to the SharePoint Look Book, select your desired design template, and provision it as a brand new site collection.
Open your PowerShell console and connect to the newly provisioned site using the command: Connect-PnPOnline -Url <NewSiteUrl> -Interactive
Extract the site design and theme by running the command: Get-PnPSiteTemplate -Out template.pnp to save the configuration file locally.
Connect to your existing target site using the command: Connect-PnPOnline -Url <ExistingSiteUrl> -Interactive
Apply the extracted template to your existing site by running the command: Invoke-PnPSiteTemplate -Path template.pnp
Manage Your SharePoint Documents Effortlessly with WPS Office
While SharePoint handles your intranet site structure, managing the documents hosted on those sites requires a reliable office suite. WPS Office provides a free, lightweight, and highly compatible alternative to Microsoft Office for creating and editing your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.
- 1. Download and Install: Get WPS Office from the official website and follow the installation prompts to set it up on your device.
- 2. Open Your Documents: Open any existing .docx, .xlsx, or .pptx files downloaded from your SharePoint document libraries.
- 3. Edit and Save: Use the familiar interface to edit your work, then save it in the original Microsoft format to seamlessly re-upload to SharePoint.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I directly apply a Look Book template to an existing site without PowerShell?
No, the SharePoint Look Book is currently designed to provision entirely new site collections. You cannot deploy them directly over existing sites through the standard Look Book web interface.
Will applying a PnP template overwrite my existing SharePoint site data?
Applying a PnP template generally adds or updates lists, libraries, and themes without deleting existing document library content. However, it may overwrite existing pages if they share the exact same file name as those included in the template.
How do I install the PnP PowerShell module?
Open PowerShell as an administrator and run the command 'Install-Module -Name PnP.PowerShell' to install the latest PnP PowerShell tools necessary for site template extraction.
Why did my SharePoint Look Book provisioning fail initially?
Provisioning can fail if you lack tenant administrator privileges, if custom scripts are disabled on the tenant level, or if there is a temporary Microsoft service outage.
