How to change the theme of the workbook to Office in Excel

Microsoft Office 2016 includes powerful design tools that you can use to create attractive, professional documents quickly. The Excel product team implemented these capabilities by defining workbook themes and Excel table styles. A theme is a way to specify the fonts, colors, and graphic effects that appear in a workbook. Excel comes with many themes.

Change a workbook’s overall appearance by using an Office theme

When you start to format a workbook element, Excel displays a palette of colors with two sections: standard colors, which remain constant regardless of the workbook’s theme, and colors that are available within the active theme. If you format workbook elements by using colors specific to a theme, applying a different theme changes the colors of those elements.

Select theme-specific or standard colors

You can change a theme’s colors, fonts, and graphic effects. If you like the combination you create, you can save your changes as a new theme that will appear at the top of the themes gallery.

Just as you can define and apply themes to entire workbooks, you can apply and define Excel table styles. After you give your style a descriptive name, you can set the appearance for each Excel table element, decide whether to make your new style the default for the current document, and save your work.

Define new Excel table styles in the New Table Style dialog box

To apply a table style

1. Click any cell in the list of data you want to format as a table.
2. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the Format as Table button, and then click the table style you want to apply.

3. In the Format As Table dialog box, verify that Excel has identified the data range correctly.

   

   Verify that Excel has identified your table data correctly

4. Select or clear the My table has headers check box to reflect whether or not your list of data has headers.
5. Click OK.

To apply a table style and overwrite existing formatting

1. Click any cell in the list of data you want to format as a table.
2. Click the Format as Table button, and right-click the table style you want to apply.
3. On the shortcut menu that appears, click Apply and Clear Formatting.
4. Click OK.

To create a new table style

1. Click the Format as Table button, and then click New Table Style.
2. In the New Table Style dialog box, enter a name for the new style.
3. Click the table element you want to format.
4. Click the Format button, change the element by using the controls in the Format Cells dialog box, and then click OK.
5. Click OK to close the New Table Style dialog box.

To modify an existing table style

1. Click the Format as Table button, right-click the table style you want to modify, and then click Modify.

2. In the Modify Table Style dialog box, edit style elements you want to modify.
3. Click OK.

To delete a table style

1. Click the Format as Table button, right-click the table style you want to delete, and then click Delete.

2. In the message box that appears, click OK.

To apply an Office theme to a workbook

1. On the Page Layout tab of the ribbon, in the Themes group, click the Themes button.
2. Click the theme you want to apply.

To change the fonts, colors, and effects of an Office theme

1. Click the Colors, Fonts, or Effects button.
2. Click the set of colors, fonts, or effects you want to apply.

To create a new Office theme

1. Use the controls in the Themes group to change the fonts, colors, or effects applied to the current theme.
2. Click the Themes button, and then click Save Current Theme.
3. Enter a name for your new theme.
4. Click Save.

To delete a custom Office theme

1. Click the Themes button, and then click Save Current Theme.
2. In the Save Current Theme dialog box, right-click the theme you want to delete, and then click Delete.
3. Click Cancel.

In Excel, a Theme is a collection of default Colors, Fonts, and Effects that can be added to a workbook or items in a workbook, for instance, Tables and Charts. Each Theme gives a unique Color, Font, and Effects, which provides the document with a consistent professional look. When a new Theme is selected, the new style will replace any styles from the workbook.

The tools for creating Themes are available in the Page Layout tab in the Theme Group.  These tools are Themes, Colors, Font, and Effect.

• Themes: Themes give your workbook a consistent, attractive style
• Color: change the color in your document by clicking a color palette
• Font: Changes the text in your workbook by choosing a font set. It changes your document text at the same time.
• Effects: It changes the look of objects in the workbook. It uses Visual Effects.

Hovering over the Theme’s Tools in the Themes Group will give you a preview of how they will look on your worksheet.

In this tutorial, we will explain how to choose and customize your workbook in Excel.

How to Add Themes to your Excel Workbook

To add Themes to your workbook, ensure that the data is in a table and the style is normal because you will not see the Theme Palettes when selected applied to our worksheet.

First, go to the Page Layout tab on the top left of the Page Layout Window select Themes. In the Theme Group, a drop-down list will show select your desired Theme. When the Theme is selected, you will notice how the style and color change within the worksheet table.

You can also browse for a theme. Select Browse for Themes, your File Explorer window will pop up. Choose a Theme that you downloaded and add it to your table. Then OK. You can also save your Theme by selecting  Save Current Theme. The Theme will be saved to the File Explorer, name your Theme, choose the Folder you want your Theme to be in, then Save.

Add Theme Colors to your Workbook

Go to the Themes Group on the Page Layout tab and select Colors, a list of Color Palettes will appear, then select the Color Palette you want; notice only the colors within the table in the worksheet changes.

You can also customize your colors by selecting Customized Colors. A dialog box called Create New Theme Colors will appear; choose your Colors or Text/ Background Colors, then OK. The Theme within the table shown in the pictures will change.

Add Fonts to your Excel Workbook

Go to the Page Layout tab in the Theme Group. Select Fonts, Select your desired Font. Notice that the Font Style in the Table changes.

You can also customize your Font by clicking Customized Fonts. A dialog box will appear called Create New Theme Fonts. Click the drop-down arrow of the Heading and Body Font. You will see Fonts Styles you can download from the Microsoft Store. Select your desired style, then name your style, then OK.

Add Effects to your Workbook Object

In the Themes Group, select Effect on the Page Layout tab, a list of Effects will appear. Choose the  Effect you want, then OK. Notice that your object will change.

We hope this post helps you change the appearance of your workbook.