27. Customizing Themes and Backgrounds
In This Chapter
• Applying a New Theme to Your Presentation
• Applying Multiple Themes to a Single Presentation
• Formatting Presentation Backgrounds
PowerPoint offers numerous tools to help you create presentations quickly and easily. There are times, however, when you might not like your initial choices or need to go beyond existing designs to create a truly unique presentation. Fortunately, PowerPoint makes it easy to switch to a new theme, apply multiple themes, change your theme’s color variant, or format a presentation background.
Applying a New Theme to Your Presentation
When you create a presentation, PowerPoint prompts you to choose a theme, which is a coordinated set of colors, fonts, and effects. However, you can easily change the theme originally applied to your presentation in a matter of seconds.
To apply a new theme to your existing presentation, follow these steps:
1. Click the Design tab to view the Themes group (see Figure 27.1), which displays several potential themes. Your presentation’s current theme displays to the far left.
2. If none of these themes suits your needs, click the down arrow on the right side of the Themes box to display a gallery of additional themes, as shown in Figure 27.2.
3. Pause your mouse over each theme to preview it in your active slide.
4. Select the theme you want to use.
5. Optionally, select a color variant in the Variants group on the Design tab. PowerPoint applies this new theme and its selected variant to your presentation.
Applying Multiple Themes to a Single Presentation
PowerPoint enables you to use more than one theme in a presentation. Multiple themes might be appropriate if you want to use one theme for your title slide and another for the rest of your presentation. Or if your presentation is divided into several distinct sections, you might want to use a separate theme for each. Figure 27.3 shows an example of a presentation with multiple themes.
Caution
Although it’s easy to apply multiple themes, you should carefully consider whether it’s a good idea. Too many contrasting styles and designs can make your presentation confusing and difficult to follow.
To apply a different theme to a group of slides, select the slides whose theme you want to change (in Normal view or Slide Sorter view). On the Design tab, select the new theme in the Themes group. PowerPoint applies the new theme only to the selected slides. The unselected slides retain the original theme.
Caution
If you select only a single slide, PowerPoint applies the theme to the entire presentation. To apply a theme to a single slide, right-click the theme in the Themes group and then select Apply to Selected Slides from the menu.
Tip
You can also apply a new variant to selected slides by right-clicking a variant in the Variants group and selecting Apply to Selected Slides from the menu.
Applying a New Theme Variant
When you created your presentation, PowerPoint prompted you to select a new variant without changing your presentation’s theme. To do so, select a new variant in the Variants group on the Design tab (refer to Figure 27.1).
Formatting Presentation Backgrounds
You can further customize your presentation by formatting its background. In addition to applying specific background colors, you can also apply gradient or texture fills, hide background graphics, apply artistic effects, and modify pictures.
Formatting Your Presentation’s Background
Formatting a background is an easy way to change the appearance of your presentation and its theme.
To format a background, follow these steps:
1. On the Design tab, click the Format Background button. The Format Background pane opens (see Figure 27.4).
2. Click one of the following buttons to display related content on the pane: Fill, Effects, or Picture.
3. After specifying your background preferences in this pane, click the Apply to All button. The new background displays on your presentation slides, overriding the theme’s background.
The tools available on the Format Background pane are very similar to those found on the Format Shape pane. See Chapter 5, “Working with Shapes and SmartArt,” for more information about this pane.
Tip
Another option is to apply a background style. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Background Styles. A gallery opens with several background style options to choose from.
Omitting Background Graphics
If you want to omit the background graphics included with the template you applied to your presentation, click the Fill button on the Format Background pane and then select the Hide Background Graphics check box. For example, selecting this check box on a presentation whose theme includes pictures or shapes removes these objects but retains the original colors.
Resetting a Background
If you customize your background and decide you prefer the original, you can easily reset it. To reset the background to the theme default, click the Format Background button on the Design tab and click the Reset Background button on the Format Background pane.
Customizing Themes
If PowerPoint’s built-in themes don’t suit your needs, you can customize the fonts, colors, and effects in a theme and create your own theme.
Customizing Theme Color Schemes
Every PowerPoint theme includes a color scheme, a set of 12 coordinated colors used in the following parts of your presentation:
• Text and background (two light and two dark)
• Accents (six colors for graphs, charts, and other objects)
• Hyperlinks
• Followed hyperlinks
Applying a New Slide Color Scheme
If you don’t like the colors in a particular theme, you can apply another color scheme.
To apply a new scheme, follow these steps:
1. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Colors. A gallery of color schemes displays, as shown in Figure 27.5.
2. Pause your mouse over each scheme to preview it on your presentation.
3. Click the scheme you prefer to apply it to your presentation.
Applying Multiple Color Schemes to a Single Presentation
PowerPoint also enables you to apply multiple color schemes within a single presentation. As with applying multiple themes, think carefully before applying many different colors to your presentation. To apply multiple color schemes to your presentation, follow these steps:
1. Select the slides to which you want to apply a separate color scheme. You can do this on the Slides panes on the left side of your screen or in Slide Sorter view.
2. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Colors. The theme colors gallery displays.
3. In the gallery, right-click the new color scheme, and choose Apply to Selected Slides. PowerPoint applies the color scheme to only the selected slides. The unselected slides retain the original color scheme.
To return to a single color scheme, select that scheme from the gallery.
Although the capability to apply multiple color schemes to your presentation adds flexibility and creativity, be sure not to overdo it. Consider carefully before applying more than one color scheme to verify that your presentation is still consistent and readable.
Creating a Custom Color Scheme
Occasionally, you might want to customize the individual colors in a color scheme. For example, you might like a particular scheme but want to modify one of the text/background colors. Or you might want to use colors that match your company’s logo or other design elements.
To create a custom color scheme, follow these steps:
1. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Colors to open the colors gallery.
2. In the gallery, select Customize Colors to open the Create New Theme Colors dialog box (see Figure 27.6).
3. In the dialog box, select theme colors for text, backgrounds, accents, and hyperlinks from the drop-down lists. The Sample box previews your selections.
4. Enter a name for your new color scheme.
5. When you’re happy with your choices, click the Save button. Your new color scheme now displays as a custom color scheme, available for selection from the gallery.
To edit custom color schemes, right-click the appropriate color scheme in the gallery, and select Edit from the shortcut menu. Make your changes in the Edit Theme Colors dialog box, and click Save.
To delete a custom color scheme, right-click the appropriate color scheme in the gallery, and select Delete from the shortcut menu. Click Yes to confirm the deletion. The custom scheme no longer displays in the gallery.
Customizing Theme Fonts
Although each theme comes with coordinating fonts, you can apply new fonts to your presentation—or create your own.
Applying New Theme Fonts
To apply new theme fonts, follow these steps:
1. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Fonts. The font gallery displays, as shown in Figure 27.7.
2. Pause your mouse over each font pair to preview on your presentation. The font gallery shows two fonts in each pair. The first is for headings (both titles and subtitles) and the second is for body text, which includes all text other than title text such as text in tables, charts, and so on.
3. Choose the font pair you prefer from the font gallery.
Creating New Theme Fonts
To create new theme fonts, follow these steps:
1. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Fonts.
2. In the font gallery, click Customize Fonts to open the Create New Theme Fonts dialog box (see Figure 27.8). If you enable multiple language support, this dialog box might contain additional options.
3. Select a new Heading Font and a new Body Font from the drop-down lists. The Sample box previews your selections.
4. Enter a name for your custom font pair.
5. Click the Save button. Your new custom font pair now displays in the font gallery.
Tip
Be sure that any new fonts you apply are readable on your slides. Theme fonts are designed to be easy to read with all theme color schemes.
1. Right-click the custom font pair you want to edit in the font gallery and choose Edit from the shortcut menu. The Edit Theme Fonts dialog box displays, which is nearly identical to the Create New Theme Fonts dialog box.
2. Make your changes in the Edit Theme Fonts dialog box.
3. Click the Save button.
Tip
To delete custom fonts, right-click the custom font pair in the font gallery, and choose Delete from the shortcut menu. Click Yes when prompted to confirm. Your custom fonts no longer display in the font gallery.
Customizing Theme Effects
In addition to colors and fonts, you can also apply new effects that coordinate with your theme. These effects affect the look of tables, text, charts, diagrams, shapes, and pictures. Theme effects play a particularly important role with objects to which you’ve applied shape styles.
On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Variants group and select Effects. A gallery of theme effects displays, as shown in Figure 27.9.
Pause your mouse over each effect to preview it on your presentation. Note that changes display only if your slide content is affected by theme effects. Click the effect you prefer to apply it to your presentation.
Working with Custom Themes
If you modify the fonts, colors, and effects of a theme, you might want to save it to apply to future presentations. For example, you might want to create a custom theme to use throughout your company.
Creating and Saving a Custom Theme
To create a custom theme, follow these steps:
1. Make any theme changes such as changes to your theme’s colors, fonts, and effects.
2. On the Design tab, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the Themes group.
3. Select Save Current Theme from the gallery. The Save Current Theme dialog box opens.
4. Enter a filename for your new theme.
5. Click the Save button to save your theme as an Office Theme file type stored in the Document Themes folder. Your theme is now available to select from the gallery.