go to slidesgo.com

How to Add or Change Themes in PowerPoint

How to Add or Change Themes in PowerPoint | Quick Tips & Tutorial for your presentations

Are you tired of using the same theme over and over again? Would you like to change the design? In this new Slidesgo School tutorial, you’ll learn how to add and change themes in PowerPoint.

Changing a Theme

  • Open your presentation in PowerPoint.
  • On the Design tab, in the Themes group, select the theme that best fits your needs from the list. If you hover over any of them, you’ll see a preview. When you’re ready to continue, just click the theme. It will be applied to the entire presentation.
Changing the theme in PowerPoint

Please note that when you use a new theme in PowerPoint, since it is applied to all of the slides, the previous theme will be removed, unless it’s a PowerPoint default theme. In that case, you’ll find it on the list of default themes.

Applying a New Theme to Selected Slides Only

  • Open your presentation in PowerPoint.
  • Go to the Design tab.
  • Select the slide whose theme you want to change. If you want to select several slides, just hold Ctrl/Cmd as you click them.
Selecting slides to change their theme
Selecting slides to change their theme
  • Choose the theme you want to apply, right-click and select Apply to Selected Slides. Please note that if you change the general theme of the presentation later on, these slides will be affected too.
Applying a theme to selected slides
Applying a theme to selected slides

Importing a Theme

  • Open your presentation in PowerPoint.
  • On the Design tab, in the Themes group, click the drop-down arrow. Now click Browse for Themes. A new window will open, where you need to select the presentation that contains the theme you want to import.
Browse for Themes option
Browse for Themes option

Please note that the theme will be applied to all of the slides and any previous theme will be removed, unless it’s a default theme (in that case, you’ll find it on the list of default themes).

Editing the Colors of the Theme

Depending on the theme, it could have color variations or different palette presets that you can choose to change the color of the elements in your presentation. Let’s see how we can edit the colors of a theme:

  • Open your presentation in PowerPoint.
  • Go to the Design tab. If the theme contains color variations, you’ll see them in the Variants group.
Color variants
Color variants
  • If you want to change the color palette, click the Variants drop-down arrow, select Colors and choose any of the presets. If you want to apply a specific palette to the presentation, click Customize Colors. A new window will open, where you can select the colors that best suit your needs. You can see a little preview in the top-right corner of this window.
Customize Colors option
  • To change the color of the background, click the Variants drop-down arrow and click Background Styles. You can choose any of the presets or click Format Background, where you’ll be able to use solid colors, gradients, images or patterns as background. If you choose to do it via Format Background, its panel will appear on the right side of the screen. To apply a custom background, click Apply to All.
    If you change the background using the Format Background options, all your background pictures will be removed.
Changing the background
  • In the Variants group you’ll see other two options which allow you to modify the font of the presentation or the effects applied to the resources. Both of these options contain presets and, if you’re using the latest version of PowerPoint, you’ll see an additional option to customize the fonts or the styles.
Modifying the fonts and the styles
Modifying the fonts and the styles

Do you find this article useful?

Thanks for your feedback

Related tutorials

How to print PowerPoint notes | Quick Tips & Tutorial for your presentations

How to print PowerPoint notes

Crafting an impactful PowerPoint slideshow and delivering a captivating presentation are distinct skills. The first focuses on designing appealing visuals to convey a clear message, while the second involves employing effective presentation techniques to ensure the audience grasps the idea. The content of this article will help you with the latter part of this process, guiding future presenters on how to print PowerPoint with speaker notes to enhance your presentations success and effectiveness.

Discover Our Online Presentation Software for Free | Quick Tips & Tutorial for your presentations
News 4 months ago

Discover Our Online Presentation Software for Free

We have great news for you today! If you’ve been a Slidesgo fan for years (or months, or weeks, or days, or mere hours, we welcome everyone!), you’ll probably know for now that our templates are available mostly in two formats: for use in Google Slides and PowerPoint.Google Slides is a free tool, since you only need a Google account in order to use it. PowerPoint, on the other hand, is part of the Microsoft Office suite, so it’s not a free program, but that didn’t stop it from being one of the most popular options in the world!What if we...

Webinar: Presentation Audit | Quick Tips & Tutorial for your presentations
News 6 months ago

Webinar: Presentation Audit

With more than 15,000 templates released on Slidesgo and a user base composed of millions of people, we estimate that the total number of presentations created adds up to… um, a lot! Our team of professional designers work very hard to provide you with editable slides so that the only thing you need to do is, well, customize the elements to your liking. Starting from any given template, the results may vary a lot depending on the person who edited the contents.Have you ever wondered “Is my presentation good enough?” and wished that an expert on presentations looked at your template...

How to Change Slides Orientation in Google Slides | Quick Tips & Tutorial for your presentations

How to Change Slides Orientation in Google Slides

A change of perspective is always good! Do you want your public to look at your slides in a new way? Changing slides orientation will do the work. In this tutorial you’re going to learn how to go from horizontal slides, to vertical ones (and vice versa!).