The theme is often set to reflect an upcoming holiday or date of significance. The theme may change several times a month. If you would prefer to pick your own theme, you can change that from your Theme Preferences page. If you have manually changed the theme and you want to revert back to the automatically-changes-randomly default, you must return to your theme preferences and unselect it.

Members can also create their own themes to use and share with others. Ryan wrote a tutorial for creating websites that includes tips on how to create your own themes.

You can switch between metric and imperial (standard) measurement units in your Letterbox & Search Preferences.

Checking the Stamp Exchange every day for new listings can be exhausting, so you have the option of having Atlas Quest send you an AQ mail, once per day, with any new listings from the day before. You can opt to receive notifications of new stamp requests or stamp offers—or both. The notifications will usually go out around midnight, Pacific time, and include all new entries from the day.

Attribute	Description
	This is a theme that generally only changes the colors and images, and is the kind that often changes from day-to-day on Atlas Quest. Examples include Christmas, Independence Day, Easter, etc.
	A 'structural' theme changes where elements on the page are found or how they work. For instance, changing to the vertical menubar from the usual horizontal one found at the top of the page. This isn't used very often, but it's an option!
	Most of these themes were created when a new feature was developed for Atlas Quest and one or more persons didn't like the change. By using the CSS "display:none", the features magically "disappear." Or, technically, they're just hidden from view. You can get rid of the emotion buttons on the message boards, you can get rid of the bottom menu bar, get rid of the AQ logo showing up everywhere, etc. By enabling this attribute, you're warning that functionality on Atlas Quest will be removed.
	It's useful to format pages a little differently when they're being printed. Get rid of those unnecessary menubars and images. AQ applies a lot of these print-friendly features automatically, but you can re-enable them or hide information you aren't interested in, or change the font size or any other number of tweaks to make your printed pages more useful to you. This attribute lets people know that they may not see any visible changes if they use the theme, but it could affect pages printed from Atlas Quest.

If you've created a theme that's generally just for your own personal use and don't necessarily want to share with the world--or to test a new them you're creating--you can specify the URL of the CSS page to include as a 'personal theme.' It will be applied to pages on Atlas Quest after the 'custom theme' you've selected (assuming you've selected one). Most people should never need this option. If you don't know what CSS is, it's not really something you need to learn, and you won't need this feature.

Subtype	Description
	A holiday-themed event. Examples include Christmas, Valentine's Day, Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, etc. (But you don't have to limit yourself strictly to U.S. holidays.)
	These are themes that celebrate a specific event in the past such as the anniversary of the first moon landing or the Golden Spike ceremony marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. These themes tend to be historic, but they don't have to be.
	These themes commemorate regularly occurring events. Usually the events are annual such as the summer solstice or Talk Like a Pirate Day, but it can also include events that happen less often (e.g. the Olympics or the total solar eclipse) or more often (e.g. time changes or Friday the 13th themes).
	This theme is based on a movie, TV show, music, stage, or other artistic endeavors.
	Themes honoring a specific person.
	Themes about a specific place or location.
	Usability themes are designed to make someone's experience on Atlas Quest better or easier rather than cosmetic. All of the other subtypes are largely cosmetic in nature, but this category will hide features, move them around, or do whatever is necessary to make a better experience for others.