Mastering PowerPoint Color Themes

Most people don’t know how color themes work in PowerPoint. These powerful tools can save you hours if you know how to use them effectively.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the ins and outs of PowerPoint color themes and how they can revolutionize your presentation design process.

Understanding PowerPoint’s Color Themes

What is a presentation’s color theme?

Color themes (or schemes) serve as a cohesive set of colors that define the visual style of your presentation. They ensure consistency and allow for quick, global changes to your slides.

A typical color theme contains 12 distinct colors:

1. 2 text colors (light and dark)
2. 2 background colors (light and dark)
3. 6 accent colors
4. 2 colors for hyperlinks and followed hyperlinks

The hyperlink colors remain hidden in the normal view of PowerPoint, automatically applied when links are created and clicked.

For each color in the theme (excluding hyperlink colors), PowerPoint generates several variations, which are either darker or lighter shades of the original color.

Let’s take a look at an example using the Power-user color theme:

In this image:

• The selected orange is part of the color theme.
• All 10 colors highlighted in the first row are theme colors.
• Below, you can see 5 variations for each theme color, automatically created by Microsoft.

Modifying Color Themes in PowerPoint

How to change the color theme in PowerPoint

To customize your presentation’s color theme, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the “View” tab and click on “Slide Master.”
2. Find the “Colors” menu and click the arrow to expand it.
3. At the bottom of the list, click “Customize Colors…” as shown below:

4. A new window will open, displaying each color in your current color scheme.
5. Make your desired changes to each color.
6. Name your new theme at the bottom of the window and save it.

The new theme will be applied immediately and will be available in the theme list for future presentations, saving you time in the long run.

Changing themes in Excel and Word

The same principles apply to Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, although navigation differs slightly:

• For Excel, access the theme from the “Page Layout” tab.
• For Word, find the theme options in the “Design” tab.

Leveraging Color Themes for Maximum Efficiency

Using the color theme for default colors of shapes and charts

Color themes serve as the default color set for various elements in your presentation:

• New shapes will default to the “Accent1” color from the theme.
• Chart series will utilize theme colors, starting from “Accent1” through “Accent6.”

Benefits of a well-set-up color theme include:

• Eliminating the need to recolor every new shape you create.
• Automatically ensuring charts are created with the appropriate colors.

👉 A properly configured color theme significantly speeds up presentation creation and ensures consistent brand color application, greatly pleasing your marketing team!

Using the color theme for easy slide reuse

Colors within the theme have a unique property: objects using theme colors are “linked” to the theme. If the theme changes, these objects’ colors adjust automatically.

Example scenario: Imagine you have 100 blue shapes in your presentation that you need to change to red. Instead of manually recoloring each shape:

1. Ensure all shapes use the blue from your theme.
2. Change the theme color from blue to red.
3. All 100 shapes will automatically turn red.

This feature is especially advantageous for consultants who reuse slides for various clients with different brand colors. As long as you consistently use theme colors, adapting slides to new color schemes becomes a breeze by simply changing the theme.

👉 This practice not only saves time on your current presentation but also streamlines the process of repurposing slides for various themes or clients in the future.

Dealing with Non-Theme Color Presentations

If your slides were created using standard colors instead of theme colors, manual recoloring of elements will be necessary. However, if you have the Power-user add-in installed, you can utilize the Replace Colors feature to bulk recolor all shapes, texts, charts, and other elements with your preferred color set.

By mastering PowerPoint color themes, you’ll not only save countless hours in presentation design but also ensure consistency and professionalism across all your slides. Start implementing these techniques today and experience the transformative power of smart color theme usage in your PowerPoint workflow.