Managing Themes

As you learned earlier in the chapter, themes are applied to slide masters to create the background, color, font, and effect formatting for a presentation. Some themes are built into PowerPoint, and you can also create and save your own themes as separate files and apply them to other presentations or even to other Office documents, such as in Word and Excel. In this section you learn how to create new themes, manage theme files, and apply themes across multiple presentations.

Creating a New Theme

To create a new theme, first format a slide master exactly the way you want, including any custom layouts, backgrounds, colors, and font themes. Then save the slide master's formatting as a new theme by following these steps:

1. On the Slide Master or the Design tab, click Themes, and click Save Current Theme. The Save Current Theme dialog box opens.

   • The default location shown in the Save Current Theme dialog box under Windows Vista is C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes.

   • For Windows XP, it is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes.

2. Type a name for the theme file in the File Name text box.

3. Click Save. The new theme is saved to your hard disk.

The new theme is now available from the Themes button's menu in all presentations you create while logged in as the same user on the same PC. All of its formatting is available, including any custom color or font themes it includes.

EXPERT TIP 

As noted earlier, if the saved theme includes any custom layouts, PowerPoint does not make them available automatically when you apply the theme to an existing presentation. If you start a new presentation based on the theme, though, they are available. To start a new presentation based on a theme, open the theme file (Office Open). PowerPoint does not actually open the theme file, but instead it starts a new presentation based on it.

Renaming a Theme

You can rename a theme file by renaming the .thmx file from Windows Explorer, outside of PowerPoint. You can also rename a theme file from inside PowerPoint by using any dialog box that saves or opens files. For example, to use the Choose Theme or Themed Document dialog box to rename a theme, follow these steps:

1. From the Design or Slide Master tab, click Themes, and choose Browse for Themes. The Choose Theme or Themed Document dialog box opens.

2. Navigate to the folder containing the theme file to rename.

   • By default, theme files are stored under Windows Vista in: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes.

   • For Windows XP, it is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes.

3. Right-click the theme file and choose Rename.

4. Type the new name for the theme and press Enter.

5. Click Cancel to close the dialog box.

Deleting a Theme

A custom theme file continues appearing on the Themes button's menu indefinitely. If you want to remove it from there, you must delete it from the Document Themes folder, or move it to some other location for storage. To delete a theme, follow these steps:

1. From the Design or Slide Master tab, click Themes, and choose Browse for Themes. The Choose Theme or Themed Document dialog box opens.

2. Navigate to the folder containing the theme files:

   • In Windows Vista:

     C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes.

   • In Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes.

3. Right-click the theme file and choose Delete.

4. At the Delete File confirmation box, click Yes.

5. Click Cancel to close the dialog box.

Copying a Theme from Another Presentation

A presentation file "contains" themes in that the themes are applied to its slide masters. (That's how a template contains themes too.) As you learned earlier, you can preserve a slide master in Slide Master view so that it doesn't get deleted automatically when there are no slides based on it; by creating new slide masters, applying themes to them, and then preserving them, you can create a whole library of themes in a single presentation or template file. Then to make this library of themes available in another presentation, you simply base the new presentation on that existing presentation (or template).

However, if you did not initially base the new presentation on the template or presentation that contains the theme you want, you can apply the theme from it after-the-fact. One way to do this is to copy-and-paste (or drag-and-drop) the slide master from one file's Slide Master view to the other's.

Follow these steps to copy a slide master (and thereby copy its theme) to another presentation:

1. Open both presentations.

2. In the presentation that contains the theme, enter Slide Master view (View Slide Master).

3. Select the slide master (top slide in the left pane) and press Ctrl+C to copy it.

4. Switch to the other presentation (View Switch Windows).

5. Enter Slide Master view (View Slide Master).

6. Press Ctrl+V to paste the slide master (and its associated theme and layouts).