Solarized for Emacs

Solarized for Emacs is an Emacs 24bit theme making use of the Solarized palette, developed by Ethan Schoonover.

You can find several screenshots of Solarized for Emacs here.

Solarized for Emacs supports officially Emacs 24+. The theme is implemented in terms of customisations and deftheme and does not require the color-theme-package.

Installation

Solarized for Emacs is available for installation via the MELPA using package.el. Assuming you've set it up you can install Solarized like this:

M-x package-install solarized-theme

This package will install two variants of the theme; solarized-light-theme and solarized-dark-theme. You can load one of the theme variants with M-x load-theme.

To load it automatically on Emacs startup add this to your init file:

(load-theme 'solarized-light t)

or

(load-theme 'solarized-dark t)

You can toggle between the light and dark variant of the theme automatically with M-x solarized-toggle-theme.

Alternative Palettes

In addition to solarized-dark and solarized-light, the package ships the following theme variants:

• solarized-dark-high-contrast / solarized-light-high-contrast
• solarized-gruvbox-dark / solarized-gruvbox-light
• solarized-selenized-dark / solarized-selenized-light / solarized-selenized-black / solarized-selenized-white
• solarized-zenburn
• solarized-wombat-dark

The intent of this theme will always be that Solarized-dark/light will give you the best possible experience. Palettes other than Solarized will never have influence over theming decisions, they are complementary.

You should not expect the complementary themes to be fully accurate or the most suitable versions of how to apply those palettes into an emacs theme. The important aspect is that the color usage should be about the same as they are with the default Solarized palette.

Colors stand out with varying amounts depending on which palette is used. This theme aims for a very soft look, violet is one of the most pronounced accent colors in the Solarized palette and that is one reason why it's rarely used by the theme. Violet in another palette might stand out less and therefore be used more often if the theme was specifically designed with that palette in mind.

The original Zenburn palette doesn't have a violet it is created by blending blue and magenta to get it to fit into the theme so it's tilted towards translating into what this theme has decided.

TLDR; While solarized-gruvbox-light might be a good complement for users of solarized-light, another theme not contained in this package (gruvbox-light or whatever) might be more finely tuned in relation to the Gruvbox palette.

Customisations

Theme-specific settings

If you don't like low-contrast modeline or fringe, you can customize them either by doing M-x customize-group solarized or setting the values using elisp code:

;; make the fringe stand out from the background
(setq solarized-distinct-fringe-background t)

;; Don't change the font for some headings and titles
(setq solarized-use-variable-pitch nil)

;; make the modeline high contrast
(setq solarized-high-contrast-mode-line t)

;; Use less bolding
(setq solarized-use-less-bold t)

;; Use more italics
(setq solarized-use-more-italic t)

;; Use less colors for indicators such as git:gutter, flycheck and similar
(setq solarized-emphasize-indicators nil)

;; Don't change size of org-mode headlines (but keep other size-changes)
(setq solarized-scale-org-headlines nil)

;; Change the size of markdown-mode headlines (off by default)
(setq solarized-scale-markdown-headlines t)

;; Avoid all font-size changes
(setq solarized-height-minus-1 1.0)
(setq solarized-height-plus-1 1.0)
(setq solarized-height-plus-2 1.0)
(setq solarized-height-plus-3 1.0)
(setq solarized-height-plus-4 1.0)

;; Highlight all numbers
(setq solarized-highlight-numbers t)

Note that these need to be set before load-theme is invoked for Solarized. Alternatively you can invoke M-x solarized-reload after making configuration changes.

Overriding specific faces

If you're unhappy with how a particular mode looks you can override individual faces after loading the theme. Use custom-theme-set-faces to keep your overrides tied to the theme, or custom-set-faces for global overrides.

;; Override org-mode heading colors
(custom-theme-set-faces
 'solarized-dark
 '(org-level-1 ((t (:foreground "#268bd2" :weight bold :height 1.3))))
 '(org-level-2 ((t (:foreground "#2aa198" :weight bold :height 1.2)))))

;; Make markdown code blocks stand out more
(custom-theme-set-faces
 'solarized-light
 '(markdown-code-face ((t (:background "#eee8d5" :foreground "#657b83"))))
 '(markdown-inline-code-face ((t (:background "#eee8d5" :foreground "#657b83")))))

;; Tone down font-lock colors across all modes
(custom-theme-set-faces
 'solarized-dark
 '(font-lock-keyword-face ((t (:foreground "#859900" :weight normal))))
 '(font-lock-function-name-face ((t (:foreground "#268bd2" :weight bold)))))

These overrides should be placed after load-theme in your init file. You can discover face names at point with M-x describe-face or see all active faces with M-x list-faces-display.

Buffer-local face overrides

If you only want to tweak faces in certain major modes (without affecting the rest of Emacs), you can use face-remap-add-relative in a mode hook. It remaps a face only in the current buffer.

;; Customize faces only in OCaml buffers
(defun my-ocaml-faces ()
  (face-remap-add-relative 'font-lock-type-face :foreground "DarkGreen")
  (face-remap-add-relative 'font-lock-function-name-face :weight 'bold))

(add-hook 'tuareg-mode-hook #'my-ocaml-faces)

;; Use a larger default font in org-mode
(defun my-org-faces ()
  (face-remap-add-relative 'default :height 1.2))

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook #'my-org-faces)

See Buffer-Local Face Remapping with face-remap-add-relative for more details and advanced usage (toggling remappings, wrapping them in minor modes, etc.).

Underline position setting for X

If you are using Emacs under X you might like the following setting which puts the underline below the font bottomline instead of the baseline.

Imho it enhances the general readability and also it fits well with the default solarized-high-contrast-mode-line setting which uses a slightly emphasized underline for the modeline to create one horizontal window border in the same manner as the vertical border.

(setq x-underline-at-descent-line t)

Custom Themes

You can create your own theme that reuses all of Solarized's face definitions but with a different color palette. You provide 10 colors -- a darkest base, a brightest base, and 8 accents (yellow, orange, red, magenta, violet, blue, cyan, green) -- and the theme framework derives all the intermediate shades and highlight variants automatically.

Creating a theme from a custom palette

Call solarized-create-theme-file-with-palette in your init file. It generates a theme file in ~/.emacs.d/themes/ that you can then load normally.

;; inspired by vim's jellybeans color-theme
(solarized-create-theme-file-with-palette 'light 'solarized-jellybeans-light
  '("#202020" "#ffffff"
    "#ffb964" "#8fbfdc" "#a04040" "#b05080" "#805090" "#fad08a" "#99ad6a" "#8fbfdc"))

(load-theme 'solarized-jellybeans-light t)

;; inspired by emacs's mesa color-theme
(solarized-create-theme-file-with-palette 'light 'solarized-mesa-light
  '("#000000" "#faf5ee"
    "#3388dd" "#ac3d1a" "#dd2222" "#8b008b" "#00b7f0" "#1388a2" "#104e8b" "#00688b"))

(load-theme 'solarized-mesa-light t)

You can also override individual faces by passing a sexp as the fourth argument. This lets you tweak specific faces while still inheriting everything else from the palette:

;; wombat palette with custom face overrides
(solarized-create-theme-file-with-palette 'dark 'solarized-wombat-dark
  '("#2a2a29" "#f6f3e8"
    "#e5c06d" "#ddaa6f" "#ffb4ac" "#e5786d" "#834c98" "#a4b5e6" "#7ec98f" "#8ac6f2")
  '((custom-theme-set-faces
     theme-name
     `(default ((,class (:foreground ,(solarized-color-blend base03 base3 0.15 2) :background ,base03))))
     `(highlight ((,class (:background ,violet))))
     `(font-lock-builtin-face ((,class (:foreground ,magenta))))
     `(font-lock-constant-face ((,class (:foreground ,blue))))
     `(font-lock-comment-face ((,class (:foreground ,base00))))
     `(mode-line
       ((,class (:foreground ,base2 :background ,(solarized-color-blend base03 base3 0.85 2)))))
     `(mode-line-inactive
       ((,class (:foreground ,base00 :background ,(solarized-color-blend base03 "black" 0.85 2)))))
     `(mode-line-buffer-id ((,class (:foreground ,base3 :weight bold))))
     `(minibuffer-prompt ((,class (:foreground ,base1))))
     `(vertical-border ((,class (:foreground ,base03)))))))

(load-theme 'solarized-wombat-dark t)

Note: If the theme file already exists, solarized-create-theme-file does not regenerate it. Pass t as the fifth argument to overwrite.

Child themes

If you want to keep the Solarized palette but override specific faces consistently across dark and light variants, you can create a child theme. This is useful when you like Solarized's colors but want to adjust how certain modes look.

Define your face overrides in a shared file:

;; my-solarized.el
(defvar my-solarized-faces
  '("My personal solarized customizations."
    (custom-theme-set-faces
     theme-name
     `(rainbow-delimiters-depth-1-face ((,class (:foreground ,base02))))
     `(org-level-1 ((,class (:foreground ,blue :weight bold)))))))

(provide 'my-solarized)

Then create thin wrapper files for each variant (place these on your custom-theme-load-path):

;; themes/my-solarized-dark-theme.el
(require 'solarized)
(require 'my-solarized)
(eval-when-compile
  (require 'solarized-palettes))

(deftheme my-solarized-dark "My dark Solarized child theme")
(solarized-with-color-variables
  'dark 'my-solarized-dark solarized-dark-color-palette-alist my-solarized-faces)

(provide-theme 'my-solarized-dark)

;; themes/my-solarized-light-theme.el
(require 'solarized)
(require 'my-solarized)
(eval-when-compile
  (require 'solarized-palettes))

(deftheme my-solarized-light "My light Solarized child theme")
(solarized-with-color-variables
  'light 'my-solarized-light solarized-light-color-palette-alist my-solarized-faces)

(provide-theme 'my-solarized-light)

Your face overrides have access to all palette variables (base03, base0, yellow, blue, etc.) and all derived variables (s-fringe-bg, s-mode-line-fg, etc.). See the child-theme-example directory for a working example.

Versioning Policy

• This package uses semantic versioning

• Master branch is to be considered unstable (which isn't an excuse to constantly break behaviour). Use MELPA Stable if you want fewer breaking changes.

Bugs & Improvements

Please, report any problems that you find on the projects integrated issue tracker. If you've added some improvements and you want them included upstream don't hesitate to send me a patch or even better - a GitHub pull request.

License

Copyright © 2011-2026 Bozhidar Batsov, Thomas Frössman, and contributors.

Distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3