Once you have configured your theme options (fonts, colors and effects) so that you have arrived at the look that you want to use, you can save it by opening the Themes dialog (on the Page Layout tab in Word and Excel and the Design tab in PowerPoint) and click the Save Current Theme option. Give your theme a name and you will find it available in the Theme list so you can use it again in future.
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Configuring your default theme
You can set a theme to be your default so that when you open the application the theme is applied automatically. The process is different for each of the Office 2007 applications. In PowerPoint the process is simple: right click the theme that you want to use as the default and choose Set as default theme.
To change the default theme in Microsoft Word, create a new blank document and from the Home tab use the Change Styles options to change the document's Style Set, Colors and then Fonts to those that you want to use by default for all new documents. When you are done, click Change Styles again and click the Set as Default option and these will be saved to the documents template and used for all new documents.
In Microsoft Excel, to change the theme, create a new blank workbook and from the page layout tab click the themes group and apply a theme to your worksheet. Now choose the Microsoft Office button, click Save As and click Excel workbook. Browse to locate your XLStart folder (typically c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\XLStart) and in the file name box type book.xltx to create a default workbook template. In the Save As Type list, click Excel Template (*.xltx) and click Save. The document book.xltx when saved in the XLStart folder becomes the default style for all new Excel workbooks.
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More Themes available online
If there are not sufficient Themes available in Office 2007 to meet your needs, you can find more themes on the Microsoft Office Web site by clicking to open the Themes dialog and choosing More Themes on Microsoft Office Online. Themes are displayed with ratings that indicate how well perceived they are by other users.
You can download one or more of these themes into your program so that you can use them any time you want. The downloaded theme will appear in the Custom group in your themes list.
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Some things to watch out for
There are a few things to be aware of when working with themes in Office 2007. In Word, many of the table formats, particularly those at the top of the list, are not theme related so they do not contain elements that will change when the theme changes. Formats that you should look for as being related to the theme include those whose descriptions include mention of accent colors such as Light Shading-Accent 1. Accent colors are theme colors so these table styles will change if the theme changes.
In PowerPoint you can add special effects such as reflections to your PowerPoint tables. To do this, apply a table style using the Table Tools, Design tab, and then click the Effects button to locate a Reflection effect to apply to the table. While similar formats are available for Word tables, you can't apply reflections to them.
WordArt has been given a new makeover in both PowerPoint and in Excel but not in Word. The new WordArt in PowerPoint and Excel shows designs compatible with the current theme and the look of the WordArt will change when the theme changes. Unfortunately in Word, it is the same old option as we've had for years.
When you include an image in a document you can recolor it using one of a series of light and dark variations of the theme colors. To do this, select the image and select Recolor from the Picture Tools, Format tab. If you subsequently change the theme that you are using, the coloring of the image will alter to suit the theme colors.
There is a lot to like about Themes in Office 2007. They offer you the ability to take a regular document, worksheet, or presentation and add style and color to it in a single step and to then modify this as needed in a very efficient, painless manner. In short, Themes are a key tool for improving your everyday productivity and efficiency.
Helen Bradley is a respected international journalist writing regularly for small business and computer publications in the USA, Canada, South Africa, UK and Australia. She blogs at http://www.projectwoman.com/blogger.html.
Be sure to check out all of Helen's articles in the Exploring Office 2007 series:
