Themes in Word 2007
Posted by: Minal Agarwal ,
on 6/13/2008,
in
Category Word 2007
Abstract: We all know Word can be used for creating personal documents, business documents, letters, and mails and now with Word 2007; for creating blogs. But how many of you have actually used themes and styles to give it a professional look. Office 2007 provides a number of predefined themes for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. In this article let us explore how to use document themes in Word 2007.
Themes in Word 2007
Many of us open a Word document and start typing with an aim of creating a document. Whenever we want to format it we use individual tools for font, paragraph, alignment, headings, tables, border and so on. But with Word 2007 you can quickly and easily format your document by applying a document theme and give it a professional and modern look.
A document theme is a collection of formatting tools for color, font and styles that you can apply in combination. This saves your time and lets you apply professional designs to your document by a simple click. You can also choose to customize the themes according to your selection and these custom themes can be shared across all the Office programs. Document Themes determine and enable you to set the text, tables, headings and graphic elements throughout your document.
Apply a document theme
The default theme applied to all the blank documents is the ‘Office Theme’ which gives a white background and black colored font. When you choose a different theme for your document this theme is replaced with your new selection. Follow the steps below to apply themes:
1. When you launch Word, a new document is opened. Go to the Page Layout tab on the ribbon and in the Themes group click on ‘Themes’ or on the arrow below Themes to explore all the predefined themes.
The default theme as you can see in the figure above is the ‘Office Theme’.
2. To apply a predefined theme, choose any of the ‘Built-In’ themes.
3. To apply a custom theme, choose any of the ‘Built-In’ themes you want your custom theme based upon. Then follow the steps given under next heading – ‘Customize a document theme’.
4. Choose to explore ‘More Themes on Microsoft Office Online…’ if you want to use a new theme that is not available in this list.
5. If you want to use a document theme that is not listed in Built-In Themes the ‘Browse for Themes…’ and find it on your computer.
Customize the Document Theme
To customize a document theme you can change colors, font and effects used in the document. These changes would be immediately applied to your current document. And if you want to use this theme across your documents and other Office programs, then save this custom theme.
Customize theme colors
Theme colors consist of four text and background colors, six accent colors and two hyperlink colors. To customize document theme color follow these steps:
1. Click on the Color button next to Themes in the same section. See figure below:
2. Choose any of the listed color themes or keep the existing color theme (default is ‘Office’) and click on ‘Create New Theme Colors…’.
3. You can change any or all of these existing colors by clicking on the drop down boxes, give a name to the theme and click on Save.
Customize theme fonts
Theme fonts contain a heading font and body font.
1. Click on the font button below the color button.
As seen in the above figure, the heading font and body font are listed one below another.
2. Click on ‘Create New Theme Fonts…’ and choose the font in the ‘Create New Theme Fonts’ window.
3. Give a name to the theme and click on Save.
Select a theme effect
Theme effects include line and fill effects. Click on the last button in the column and choose an appropriate effect for you document.
Save a document theme
Any changes made to the current theme would be applied to the document. Save these changes to use the same theme across Word documents and Office 2007 programs. Choose ‘Save Current Theme’ by clicking on arrow below Themes in the Themes section of the ribbon.
Conclusion
I hope this article has made you familiar with the concept and use of theme and now all of you would be able to create professional documents with the help of themes.
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Minal Agarwal, Expression Web MVP, MCDST, works as a freelance web designer (
SaffronStroke) working on Expression Web, Photoshop and other Graphical tools. As a hobby, she also runs a famous Food site called
Foodatarian.com. Follow her on twitter @
saffronstroke