Before you start any new file in PowerPoint, Excel or Word, it is imperative that you use the right theme. Power-user allows you to save and use multiple theme files directly from PowerPoint, Excel & Word.

This article covers why and how you should set up themes either just for yourself as a user, or for your entire organization.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction about themes
  • What are themes?
  • Benefits of using themes in PowerPoint, Excel and Word
  • Examples of different themes
• How to set up and manage themes in Power-user
  • My organization themes
  • My themes
• Suggestions for theme files in PowerPoint
  • General recommendations for the Slide Master in PowerPoint
  • Set up an Agenda layout in your theme file
• Suggestions for theme files in Excel
  • Customize the Theme Colors
  • Customize Tables and PivotTables Styles
  • Customize Cell Styles
• Suggestions for theme files in Word
  • Customize the Theme Colors
  • Customize Styles

Introduction about themes

What are themes?

Themes are one of the simplest yet most efficient solutions to strengthen brand compliance and productivity in your organization.

A theme - also sometimes called a template - contains your organization's branding: it can contain colors, fonts, effects, but also custom styles for cells, tables, PivotTables, paragraphs, etc. 

In each application - PowerPoint, Excel & Word - the theme can also contain actual content, readily available to start with.

• In PowerPoint, a theme file usually also contains your organization's slide master with a number of layouts helping you design slides consistently and efficiently
• In Excel you may have sheets already available for a disclaimer or table of content, or to save key charts or data
• In Word you may have headers and footers already there for whenever you start a document

Benefits of using themes in PowerPoint, Excel and Word

There are really huge benefits to deploying themes, especially when it's done for all the users in your organization:

• Brand compliance by default: 
  • Whenever a user launches the application (e.g. PowerPoint), instead of a pure blank slide they will start directly with a blank presentation in your corporate theme (template, colors, fonts, effects).
  • All content created inside these documents, such as tables, PivotTables, charts, shapes etc. will be already compliant with the corporate branding.
• Design consistency by default: because the theme will be the same in PowerPoint, Excel & Word, your presentations will be more visually consistent instead of using different sets of colors for each chart.
• Enhanced productivity: 
  • Because all new content will be brand compliant by default, users will save a huge amount of time which is usually spent on formatting.
  • Also, since users will be using Theme colors instead of "hard" colors, the slides will be much easier to convert to another template later in the future (see How a smart use of color themes can save you hours on PowerPoint).

Examples of different themes

In PowerPoint:

• A single PowerPoint theme file for every presentation you create, or a different one for internal Vs external presentations
• A specific theme to be used by each departments, like finance, marketing or operations using their own theme
• A theme to start designing a business proposal, another one to prepare an audit report, and another one to write client recommendations
• Etc.

In Excel:

• A single theme for every Excel file created, to ensure your corporate branding is already loaded every time, as well as custom cell formats, tables or PivotTables styles, custom macros, etc.
• Different themes for different types of financial models or dashboards
• Etc. 

In Word:

• A blank theme with just your organization's colors, fonts and styles loaded
• A theme with your organizaion's letterhead
• A theme for writing meetings' minutes
• A theme to write a CV
• Etc.

How to set up and manage themes in Power-user

With Power-user, you can easily add or remove theme files in PowerPoint, Excel & Word, and reuse these themes for every presentation you create later in the future.

There are 2 types of themes:

• My organization theme: these files are managed by your Power-user administrator. The admin can set up one or multiple themes for every user in your organization, or for groups of users. Individual users cannot remove them as they are managed by the admin.
• My theme: these files are managed by each user. You can easily add or remove files in your themes in PowerPoint, Excel & Word, and they are not shared with anyone (not with your colleagues, and definitely not with Power-user either).

My organization themes

If you are an admin for your organization's Power-user licenses, you can add and manage themes from the "Themes" section of your admin portal.

To add a theme for your organization:

• Connect to your admin portal and go to the theme section.
• Click "New" at the top. A pane will open on the right of the screen.
  • Select the "Theme type" (i.e. PowerPoint, Excel or Word).
  • Give your theme a name, to make it easily recognizable for the users.
  • You can assign the theme to a specific Team, or make it available to "All users".
  • In the "Server path" field, add the direct link to your file. See Getting the direct link to a file or folder.
  • Power-user automatically creates a preview of your file, by using the first slide / tab / page of your PowerPoint / Excel  / Word file. If you want to change the default preview, you can optionally specify a "Preview path".
  • You can also select "Set as default theme" if you want the file to be applied by default when users launch the corresponding application. There can be only 1 default file per application.
• Click "Save" to save your changes.

To manage the themes you have created, go to the theme section of your admin portal. 

• Click the "Is default" icon to change the default file (only 1 default per application)
• Click the arrows icon next to "Last updated" to push a new version of the file to the users
• Or select a theme and click "Delete" on top to remove it permanently

My themes

Every user can customize the "My themes" section.

To add a file to "My themes":

• Open the relevant file you want to save as a theme in PowerPoint, Excel or Word.
• Then in the application, go to "File" and choose the "Power-user" tab.
• Under "My themes", locate the green "+" button and click it. It will save the current file as a new theme.

To remove a theme from "My themes":

• In the relevant application, go to "File" and locate the theme to remove
• Under the theme's thumbnail, click "Delete" to remove it permanently from your themes

Suggestions for theme files in PowerPoint

Before adding a theme to all your users, keep in mind that if everyone will be using it, it deserves some real thinking and testing to be optimized to save everyone's time. 

General recommendations for the Slide Master in PowerPoint

We recommend you read our article Unlock productivity with the Slide Master in PowerPoint, which offers a comprehensive guide on key rules and tricks for a successful slide master that will save people time and effort.

Set up an Agenda layout in your theme file

The design parameters of your Power-user Agenda pages are saved in the presentation that contains that agenda. 

So if you are setting up theme files, you may want to include the design of your Agenda directly in that file, so that this desin gets automatically applied whenever you (or other users) create an Agenda in the future. agenda 

For this, go to the "Slide Master" view. Select the right layout, right-click and hit "Set as" > "Agenda layout". It will make it the default layout used for Agenda pages in the future. If you have edited the colors and formatting of your Agenda, these settings will be saved in the file.

Suggestions for theme files in Excel

Customize the Theme Colors

• Launch Excel with a blank spreadsheet.
• Go to the "Page Layout" tab, click "Colors" and "Customize Colors"

• Customize each color to fit your corporate Theme Color.
• Save the Theme Color under the name of your organization.

Customize Tables and PivotTables Styles

• Go to the "Home" tab, click "Format as Table" and "New Table Style".
• For each item, click "Format" and apply the desired format.
• Name the new "Table Style" with your organization's name (so that users can later spot the corporate style without ambiguity) 
• If you want to automatically have this style applied when a table is created, check "Set as default table style for this document"
• Click "OK" to save.
• You can do exactly the same and add a "New PivotTable Style" from the same "Format as Table" menu.

Customize Cell Styles

• Go to the "Home" tab, click "Cell Styles" and "New Cell Style".

• Click "Format" and customize the format to match your needs. 
• Save your changes.
• Repeat these steps for every cell style you want to configure.

Try creating custom Cell Styles for numbers and currencies that users will frequently need. For instance, use format # ##0  " m€" to configure a "m€" style for cells in millions, or # ##0   " Bn€" to configure a "Bn€" style for cells in billions.

Suggestions for theme files in Word

Customize the Theme Colors

In Word, go to the "Design" tab and adjust the Colors theme, just like described above for Excel.

Customize Styles

• Go to the "Home" tab and click the arrow under the "Styles" gallery.

• Click "Create a Style" and customize the style to match the needs of your corporate brand and usage.