Maybe you want to to add your brand to your work files. Maybe you just want a consistent theme for all your documents.
Regardless of your reason, these instructions will help you create a one-click, style theme for your document that allows you to set the font, colors, size, and structure of headings and body text.
Read: Why should you brand your work documents?
Alright, I’m going to admit something here: creating a custom style theme in Microsoft Office is a lot easier on Windows. On a Mac, you will need both Word and PowerPoint installed to complete a theme set up.
Step 1: Design Your Theme
In order to know what to set your fonts and colors to, we recommend creating a theme layout. By outlining your theme ahead of time you will be able to ensure your theme looks good.
Theme Kit
Use this Office Styles Theme Kit to get started designing.
Once you have downloaded the template, highlight each section (headers, paragraphs) and edit the font, size, and colors to match the look you are going for.
Step 2: Set Your Theme Colors
Setting theme colors doesn’t automatically set your font colors, but it will help you select from chosen colors in a document when you need to.
- Open PowerPoint
- Create a new Blank presentation
- In the top menu, select “Format” and then “Theme Colors
From the Create Theme Colors window, this is the fun part. Start plugging in all your colors!
Want some tips on which colors should go in which block? Adobe Spark has a great article on 3 steps to picking your brand colors. Make your primary or neutral your Accent 1 choice.
Text/Background Colors
If you are just starting out in the realm of branding, we recommend leaving these light and dark colors alone. You can play with making a “light” background something other than white (grey, ecru, eggshell?) but make sure your text contrasts in color – like black or dark grey or blue.
Get some color help!
If you are setting up a new color scheme (not using your established company’s brand), try using Coolors.co. It is a cool way to pick out colors for your theme or new brand.
Once you have selected colors, be sure to record both the Hex code (format: #000000), RBG (for computer and web), and CYMK (for print). You can then use hex or RBG to accurately set colors in Office Themes.
Step 3: Set Your Fonts
Setting fonts can be done in Word. If you downloaded the Office Styles Theme Kit above, open up this file to quickly add your fonts to your theme.
Start by pulling in your new custom colors to make selecting easier.
Change the theme fonts to match your brand and style.
Step 4: Saving Your Theme
Save your style as a specified font style, such as “Header 1”.
Highlight the text you want to save as a style. In the styles pane right click (two-finger click on Mac) the style you want to replace, such as header 1. On the drop down, select “Update Header 1 to Match Selection”.
All other text assigned as “Header 1” will automatically be updated to match.
Continue this process until you like the look of all your font styles.
Once you are done designing your fonts, save the styles and colors to a theme so you won’t ever have to do it all again!
Under the Design tab, select the Themes drop down. At the bottom, select “Save Current Theme”. Be sure to name your theme by your company or brand so you won’t forget which one it is.
That’s it! Now you are all set to get creative and set a theme you can use over and over again.
Photo by Jeroen den Otter on Unsplash
