Introduction
A theme is a predefined combination of colors, fonts, and
effects that can be applied to your presentation. PowerPoint includes
built-in themes that allow you to easily create professional-looking
presentations without spending a lot of time formatting. In this lesson, you will learn all about themes and how to apply them.
Themes
Video: Applying Themes in PowerPoint 2010
A theme is a set of colors, fonts, effects, and more that can be applied to your entire presentation to give it a consistent, professional look. You've already been using a theme, even if you didn't know it: the default Office
theme, which consists of a white background, the Calibri font, and
primarily black text. Themes can be applied or changed at any time.
Optional: You can download this example for extra practice.
Theme elements
Every PowerPoint theme—including the default Office theme—has its own theme elements. These elements are:
- Theme Colors (available from every Color menu)
- Theme Fonts (available from the Font menu)
- Shape Styles (available in the Format tab when you click a shape)
Why use theme elements?
If you're using theme elements, you'll probably find that your
presentation looks pretty good. All of the colors will work well
together, which means you won't have to spend as much time formatting
your presentation. But there's another great reason to use theme
elements: When you switch to a different theme, all of these elements will update to reflect the new theme. You can drastically change the look of your presentation in just a few clicks.
Remember, the colors and fonts will only update if you're using theme fonts or theme colors. If you choose one of the standard colors or any of the fonts that are not theme fonts,
your text will not change when you change the theme. This can be useful
if you're creating a logo or title that always needs to look the same,
like in the sample below.
Themes and slide layouts
As you can see from the two different title slides above, themes also affect the various slide layouts.
If you apply a theme before you start building your
presentation, you will be able to arrange your content to fit the
layouts you have to choose from. If you apply the theme after, the text
boxes and placeholders may move depending on the theme you choose.
Applying themes
You will need to know how to apply a theme and how
to switch to a different theme if you want to use this feature to create
presentations. All of the themes included in PowerPoint are located in
the Themes group on the Design tab. Themes can be applied or changed at any time.
To apply a theme:
- Go to the Design tab.
- Locate the Themes group. Each image represents a theme.
- Click the drop-down arrow to access more themes.
- Hover over a theme to see a live preview of it in the presentation. The name of the theme will appear as you hover over it.
- Click a theme to apply it to the slides.
