diff --git a/conf/config.inc.php b/conf/config.inc.php
index 53f4f27d9..96c3500e6 100644
--- a/conf/config.inc.php
+++ b/conf/config.inc.php
@@ -406,6 +406,9 @@
 $custom_css = "";
 $display_footer = true;
 
+# Customized template directory: to ovverride some templates files
+$custom_tpl_dir = "";
+
 # Where to log password resets - Make sure apache has write permission
 # By default, they are logged in Apache log
 #$reset_request_log = "/var/log/self-service-password";
diff --git a/docs/config_general.rst b/docs/config_general.rst
index 3468b8e93..08642e013 100644
--- a/docs/config_general.rst
+++ b/docs/config_general.rst
@@ -174,6 +174,17 @@ You can hide the footer bar:
 
     $display_footer = false;
 
+Custom templates
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+If you need to do more changes on the interface, you can create a custom templates directory
+and override any of template file by copying it from ``templates/`` into the custom directory
+and adapt it to your needs:
+
+.. code-block:: php
+
+    $custom_tpl_dir = "templates_custom/";
+
 Debug
 -----
 
diff --git a/htdocs/index.php b/htdocs/index.php
index 060668dbb..0754d4eca 100644
--- a/htdocs/index.php
+++ b/htdocs/index.php
@@ -256,10 +256,11 @@
 
 $compile_dir = isset($smarty_compile_dir) ? $smarty_compile_dir : "../templates_c/";
 $cache_dir = isset($smarty_cache_dir) ? $smarty_cache_dir : "../cache/";
+$tpl_dir = isset($custom_tpl_dir) ? array('../'.$custom_tpl_dir, '../templates/') : '../templates/';
 
 $smarty = new Smarty();
 $smarty->escape_html = true;
-$smarty->setTemplateDir('../templates/');
+$smarty->setTemplateDir($tpl_dir);
 $smarty->setCompileDir($compile_dir);
 $smarty->setCacheDir($cache_dir);
 $smarty->debugging = $smarty_debug;