Making a Customized Theme Available to Others

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 4, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021


Pauline has used "Create New Theme Colors" to include eight of her company-approved colors in a theme. The new color palette successfully appears under "Font Color" on her PC. Pauline wonders how she can transfer this new color theme to others. She would like the new color theme to be transferred to others using the template (dotx) that they currently load in their templates folder but doesn't know how to go about it.

Unfortunately, custom themes are not stored in templates. Instead, they are stored in their own special files. (More on that in a moment.)

Before you pronounce your custom theme "ready for distribution," there is one thing you need to check. Themes are used in all the applications in the Office suite. Thus, you could define a custom theme in Word and that theme will be available in other Office applications on your system, such as Excel and PowerPoint. This means that you'll want to open those other applications on your system and make sure that the theme reflects everything you want it to reflect within those applications, as well as within Word. (For instance, PowerPoint includes a few theme-related settings that are not available through Word. If your users will be using the theme in PowerPoint, you'll want to load that application and adjust the theme settings there.)

Once your theme is exactly the way you want and you save it, Word places it in a file that has whatever base name you provide (such as "MyTheme") and an extension of .thmx. Thus, the file in which your custom theme is stored is MyTheme.thmx, and it can be easily searched for on your system. For most installations of office, it will appear in the following folder:

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

The term "username" in this example varies, depending on the username of the person on the system. In addition, the exact location can be slightly different, depending on a lot of different factors. For this reason, it is generally a good idea to use the Windows search function to locate your .thmx file or, if you are searching on a system that doesn't include that file yet, for the Document Themes folder. The following article provides a good exposition of the various places that theme files can end up on a system:

https://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/learn/themes/01-evolution.html

Once you locate the file (on your system) and the folder (on a different system) you can copy the .thmx file from your system to the other system. On the target system you may need to inform Word that you have added the new .thmx file. The easiest way to figure out if this is necessary is to display the Design tab of the ribbon and then, at the left side of the ribbon, click the Themes tool. Word displays a number of theme choices. If it recognized the one you just copied, you'll see it listed near the top of the themes, in the "Custom" area. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The theme options available in Word.

If the theme doesn't show up there, click the Browse for Themes option. In the resulting dialog box, you can navigate to the location where you placed the .thmx file, click that file, and then click Open. The theme should now be available within Word.

Bill Jelen provides a good overview on this process in this article. (Though the article was written for older versions of Word, the concepts it discusses are still applicable to the program.)

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2231693/provide-a-custom-theme-with-your-company-colors-for-all-office-2007-2010-users.html

Once the custom theme is successfully stored (and recognized) on a user's system, you can then use that theme fully. This includes attaching the theme to a template so that it is used by default for new documents on that system. If you use the theme in a template and the theme file (as described earlier) is not on the system on which the template is being used, Word doesn't give you notice that it cannot find the theme—it simply "falls back" to a default theme in an effort to be helpful. Thus, it is important to make sure that all your users have the .thmx file for your custom theme saved on their systems.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13089) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Form Fields in Headers and Footers

When working with form fields, you may want to place those fields in the header or footer of a document. Word won't let ...

Discover More

Ranges on Multiple Worksheets

Referring to a range of cells on the current worksheet is easy. But what if you want to refer to a range on a number of ...

Discover More

Inserting and Deleting Rows in a Protected Worksheet

You've protected and saved your worksheet with explicit instructions that you be allowed to insert and delete rows. But ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Stubborn Highlighting

When you make extensive edits to a document and those edits include changing the formatting of numbered or bulleted ...

Discover More

Section Breaks Changing On Their Own

Sometimes Word does things that just don't make sense. For instance, have you ever inserted a section break into your ...

Discover More

Changing the Color of a List of Words

The Find and Replace tool is very powerful. If you need to use it many, many times in a row, however, it can quickly get ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 2 + 8?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.