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Microsoft 365 has two separate color systems: the Office Theme, which changes the app interface, and document theme colors, which control coordinated colors inside Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, and other files. To create a reusable brand or accessibility-conscious palette, use Colors > Customize Colors in a desktop Office app—PowerPoint is usually the clearest starting point.
The three kinds of color customization
Before changing anything, identify which color system you need:
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- Document theme: Controls coordinated colors, fonts, and effects used by headings, text, shapes, charts, tables, SmartArt, hyperlinks, and other theme-aware content.
- Direct formatting: Applies a fixed color to one selected object. Fixed colors generally do not change when you later switch the document theme.
Changing the Office Theme does not, by itself, create a custom blue, green, or corporate palette inside your documents.
Change the Microsoft 365 app interface theme
Windows
- Open Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or another desktop Microsoft 365 app.
- Select File > Options > General.
- Find Office Theme.
- Choose an available option, such as White, Dark Gray, Black, Colorful, or Use system setting.
Use system setting follows the operating system’s light or dark mode. Choices and labels can vary by Office build and update channel. See Microsoft’s current interface-theme guidance for platform-specific details: change the look and feel of Microsoft 365.
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- Open the Microsoft 365 app.
- Open the app menu and select Preferences.
- Select General.
- Under Personalize, configure the available appearance options.
Supported Mac versions may offer options such as Aluminum and Colorful, and Microsoft 365 apps can follow the Mac’s Light or Dark appearance.
This setting changes the application interface—not the theme colors stored in a Word document, Excel workbook, or PowerPoint presentation.
Create a custom document color palette
A Microsoft Office theme color set has 12 semantic roles:
- Dark Text 1
- Light Text 1
- Dark Background 1
- Light Background 1
- Accent 1 through Accent 6
- Hyperlink
- Followed Hyperlink
The six accent slots are not merely six unrelated swatches. Office uses them in styles and object schemes, including charts, shapes, tables, and SmartArt. The text, background, and hyperlink roles also need to work together across light and dark areas.
In most desktop apps, the workflow is to open the relevant theme gallery, select Colors and then Customize Colors. Choose a role, select a theme swatch, or choose More Colors. The color dialog’s Standard tab provides presets; the Custom tab allows a more exact color value, although the dialog and input format can differ by platform.
Recommended starting point: PowerPoint
PowerPoint is often the most practical place to build a palette that will be reused in several Office apps.
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- Open the Design tab.
- In the Variants group, select the drop-down arrow.
- Choose Colors > Customize Colors.
- Edit the text, background, accent, and hyperlink roles.
- Choose More Colors when the built-in swatches are insufficient.
- Enter a descriptive name, such as
Company Brand 2026. - Select Save.
The saved color set appears in the PowerPoint Colors gallery. Microsoft documents this workflow in Create your own theme in PowerPoint and Create or delete a custom theme color.
Save the complete theme as a .thmx file
If you want to preserve more than colors—such as fonts, effects, and background styles—save the entire presentation theme:
- Customize the colors, fonts, effects, and background styles.
- Open the Themes gallery on the Design tab.
- Select Save Current Theme.
- Save the resulting
.thmxfile.
A .thmx file is useful when distributing a consistent design system to colleagues or applying the same theme to new Office files.
Customize colors in Word
- Open the Design tab.
- Select Colors > Customize Colors.
- Choose the roles you want to edit, such as Accent 1, Accent 2, Hyperlink, or text and background colors.
- Choose a theme swatch, or select More Colors and enter a custom value.
- Repeat for the remaining roles.
- Review the preview, enter a name, and select Save.
To use the customized theme for new Word documents, open Design, select Themes if necessary, and choose Set as Default. This changes the document default, not the Office interface theme. Microsoft’s Word and Excel instructions are available at Change a theme and make it the default in Word or Excel.
Customize colors in Excel
- Open the Page Layout tab.
- Select Colors > Customize Colors.
- Edit the desired text, background, accent, and hyperlink roles.
- Use More Colors for an exact custom color.
- Name and save the color set.
Excel does not use the same Set as Default command documented for Word. To make a customized design the basis for new workbooks:
- Apply the custom theme to a blank workbook.
- Save the workbook as an Excel template named
Book.xltx. - Use that template when creating new workbooks.
Saving a color set makes it reusable, but does not automatically make it the default workbook design.
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Customize colors in Outlook and Access
Classic desktop Outlook
In classic desktop Outlook, Microsoft documents this message-based route:
- Open a new message.
- Open the Options tab.
- Select Colors.
- Choose a built-in set or select Customize Colors.
- Edit the roles, name the set, and save it.
This path should not be treated as universal. New Outlook, Outlook on the web, and mobile Outlook can expose different controls. Outlook also has a separate Copilot feature for creating an Outlook theme in supported clients; that is different from manually editing Office document theme colors. See Microsoft’s documentation for Outlook and Access themes and creating an Outlook theme with Copilot.
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- Open the form in Design view.
- Open the Design tab.
- Select Colors.
- Choose a color set or select Customize Colors.
- Edit, name, and save the set.
Reuse a palette across Office apps
A practical cross-app workflow is:
- Create and save the color set in PowerPoint or Word.
- Use a descriptive name that identifies the brand and revision.
- Save a full
.thmxtheme if fonts and effects must travel with the palette. - Open the other desktop Office app.
- Open its Themes or Colors gallery.
- Select the saved custom set or theme.
Microsoft explicitly documents creating a custom color in PowerPoint on Mac and then using it in subsequent PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and Excel workbooks. Cross-platform behavior should still be checked before distributing a team template: Windows, Mac, web, mobile, and legacy Office builds do not expose identical theme controls.
Make charts, shapes, tables, and SmartArt follow the palette
When an object should update with a future theme change, use a Theme Color rather than a fixed custom color.
- For a shape or text box, select it and use Shape Fill, Shape Outline, or text color. Choose from the Theme Colors section.
- For charts, use chart styles and theme-aware color schemes where possible.
- For tables and SmartArt, prefer theme-based styles instead of manually coloring every cell or element.
Colors chosen from a Standard or Custom color dialog and applied directly to an object are fixed formatting. Microsoft warns that these colors are not updated when the document theme changes. To restore inheritance, select the object and reapply a swatch from Theme Colors.
A theme may therefore change only some content. Objects with direct formatting, imported content, legacy themes, or independent style settings can remain unchanged. Microsoft also notes that missing PowerPoint variants can result from custom themes, older themes, or imported slides.
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Design a palette that remains usable
A coordinated palette is not automatically an accessible palette. Before distributing a theme, check:
- Contrast: Text and important graphics must remain distinguishable from their backgrounds.
- Color-vision deficiency: Accent colors should remain distinguishable for common forms of color blindness.
- Light and dark surfaces: Test text and accents on both light and dark backgrounds.
- Accent meaning: Make sure Accent 1–6 are meaningfully different in charts, tables, and diagrams.
- Links: Hyperlink and Followed Hyperlink colors should be recognizable and sufficiently distinct.
- Printing: Test printed pages, including grayscale output.
- Non-color cues: Do not communicate meaning through color alone. Add labels, icons, patterns, line styles, position, or text.
- Real content: Test the palette in headings, shaded tables, charts, SmartArt, forms, and hyperlinks—not just in the color editor preview.
Microsoft’s guidance on color and contrast for accessibility in Microsoft 365 provides additional accessibility recommendations.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Dark mode and document backgrounds
The Black Office Theme is an application appearance setting, but Word and Outlook can also recolor document or message backgrounds by default. If that behavior is unwanted, Word and Outlook provide separate settings to prevent document or message background changes. Dark mode is therefore not identical to simply changing a document’s theme-color palette.
Troubleshoot palette problems
“I changed the Office Theme, but my document colors did not change.”
You changed the app interface theme. Use Design > Colors, Page Layout > Colors, or PowerPoint’s Design > Variants > Colors controls instead.
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- Confirm that you are using a desktop Office app rather than a web or mobile app.
- Look for the Design, Page Layout, or Variants tab.
- Search the app’s command box for Customize Colors.
- Check whether the Ribbon is simplified or the command is hidden.
- For a supported desktop edition, try creating the palette in PowerPoint and applying it elsewhere.
- Update Office if the documented controls are absent.
The exact controls can depend on the app, platform, document type, and Office build.
“My manually colored objects did not update.”
The objects probably use direct Standard-tab or custom colors. Select each object and reapply a color from the Theme Colors section.
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“The theme changed only some objects.”
Theme changes affect theme-aware content. Directly formatted objects and some imported or legacy content can retain their own colors and styles.
“The palette looks different in another app.”
Different apps use theme roles through different object styles. Direct formatting, imported themes, platform differences, and app-specific support can also affect the result. Review the actual Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access content rather than assuming every accent will appear identically everywhere.
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Open the other app’s Themes or Colors gallery and look for the saved set or .thmx file. On Mac, Microsoft documents PowerPoint-created custom colors being available in new Word and Excel files. If the theme will be shared across platforms, test it in the exact Office editions your team uses.
Desktop, web, and mobile differences
The instructions above are primarily for desktop Microsoft 365 applications. Office for the web and mobile apps may allow users to apply existing themes or styles without exposing the full custom theme-color editor. Do not assume that a palette created on Windows, Mac, or PowerPoint will have identical editing controls everywhere.
Microsoft’s newer Office theme, including updated default colors and Aptos, is also subject to version and rollout differences. Some installations may show the newer standard palette while others may still offer the previous theme, renamed Office Theme 2013–2022. These document-theme defaults are separate from the Office interface theme.
Quick Recap
Quick reference
| App | Color customization path | Default or reuse method |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Office interface | File > Options > General > Office Theme | Changes app appearance |
| Mac Office interface | App menu > Preferences > General > Personalize | Changes app appearance |
| Word | Design > Colors > Customize Colors | Design > Themes > Set as Default |
| Excel | Page Layout > Colors > Customize Colors | Save a customized blank workbook as Book.xltx |
| PowerPoint | Design > Variants > Colors > Customize Colors | Save color set or full theme as .thmx |
| Classic Outlook | New message > Options > Colors > Customize Colors | Controls vary in newer Outlook clients |
| Access | Form Design view > Design > Colors | Apply to supported forms |
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