Blocking a Theme Change

Linda finds themes to be the bane of those who depend on templates and styles. If she attaches a template to a document and spends time applying the styles, invariably someone in her office comes along and changes the theme used in the document. This destroys all the work she previously did. Linda wonders is there is a way to block themes from being changed for a document.

Word does provide a way you can limit what formatting changes can be made, including switching themes. There are actually two ways you can get to these settings. The first is to follow these steps:

1. On the Home tab of the ribbon, click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Styles group. Word displays the Styles task pane at the right side of the document.
2. Click the Manage Styles button at the bottom of the task pane. (It is the third button; you can hover the mouse pointer over the buttons to make sure you click the right one.) Word displays the Manage Styles dialog box.
3. Make sure the Restrict tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Restrict tab of the Manage Styles dialog box.

4. Make sure the Block Theme or Scheme Switching check box is selected.
5. Click on OK.
6. Save your document. (The setting isn't made permanent for the document until you save.)

The "don't allow themes to be switched" setting is done in this way because that restriction must travel with the document. If the setting was done through the Word Options dialog box, then it would apply only to the local machine, not to the document when it is being used on someone else's machine.

I mentioned that there are two ways that you can get to this setting. Here is the second way:

1. Display the Review tab of the ribbon.
2. Click the Restrict Editing tool, in the Protect group. Word displays the Restrict Editing task pane at the right side of the document.
3. Click the Settings link under the first step, Formatting Restrictions. Word displays the Formatting Restrictions dialog box. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Formatting Restrictions dialog box.

4. Make sure the Block Theme or Schem Switching check box is selected.
5. Click on OK to dismiss the Formatting Restrictions dialog box.
6. Close the Restrict Editing task pane.
7. Save your document.

Of course, it is possible that a determined user could get beyond the restriction on the document and still change the themes. For this reason, the best long-term solution (in my book) is to think through how you set up your styles and templates. Remember that themes affect only the built-in styles provided with Word. If you base your styles on the built-in styles, then the theme will modify your styles. The solution (to me) is to NOT base any of your styles on Word's built-in styles. If you define styles that are independent of the built-in styles, and someone changes the theme, it will do them no good—there will be no visible change in what is shown in the document because only styles that are not in use (the built-in styles) are affected.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (186) applies to Microsoft Word 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365.