When you start a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and insert a shape or highlight some text, the color picker defaults to the standard Office theme (a collection of bright blues, oranges, and greens). If you are building a presentation for your company, you likely have to manually click “More Colors,” type in a specific HEX or RGB code to match your corporate branding, and repeat that tedious process for every single slide.
Instead of manually color-picking every element, you should build a custom Color Theme. This permanently alters the default color palette in the top ribbon so that your specific corporate colors are always just one click away. Better yet, you can export this entire theme as a .thmx file and email it to your entire team, ensuring everyone in the office stays perfectly on-brand.
Step 1: Create the Custom Color Palette
- Open a blank presentation in PowerPoint.
- Navigate to the Design tab in the top ribbon.
- On the right side of the ribbon, in the Variants group, click the small More arrow (the downward-pointing arrow with a line above it).
- Hover over Colors to reveal a massive list of pre-made palettes.
- Look all the way at the bottom of this list and click Customize Colors…
Step 2: Assign the Colors
A “Create New Theme Colors” dialogue box will appear, showing 12 different color slots.
- Text/Background (Dark/Light): Leave the first four options alone (black, white, and standard greys) unless your company explicitly uses a dark-mode background. Changing these will alter the default font colors, which can ruin readability.
- Accent 1 through Accent 6: These are the six primary colors that will appear in your quick-access palette. Click the color box next to “Accent 1”, select More Colors, and type in your company’s primary HEX code (e.g., your exact shade of corporate blue).
- Repeat this process for Accents 2-6 using your secondary branding colors.
- At the bottom, type a logical name in the Name box (e.g., “Corp_Branding_2024”).
- Click Save. Your entire ribbon will instantly update to feature your new colors.
Step 3: Save as a .thmx File for the Team
Now that your colors are perfect, you need to package the theme so you can distribute it to your coworkers.
- Click on the File tab in the top-left corner.
- Select Save As (or Save a Copy).
- Click Browse to open the standard Windows save dialogue box.
- CRITICAL STEP: Click the “Save as type” dropdown menu below the file name. Do not save it as a PowerPoint Presentation (*.pptx). Instead, scroll down and select Office Theme (*.thmx).
- Name the file (e.g., “Company_Theme.thmx”) and save it to your Desktop.
How Your Coworkers Use It
You can now attach that tiny .thmx file to a mass email or drop it in a shared Slack channel. When your coworkers download it, all they have to do is double-click the file. PowerPoint will instantly launch a new, blank presentation with your custom corporate color palette perfectly loaded and ready to use in their ribbon.