How to Apply and Customise PowerPoint Themes

Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the most popular tools for creating presentations, whether for business, education, or personal use. While anyone can add text to a slide, what makes a presentation stand out is its design. That’s where PowerPoint Themes come in.

A theme is a pre-designed set of colours, fonts, and effects that ensures your slides look consistent and professional. Even better, you can customise themes to match your brand, style, or audience.

In this guide, we’ll show you step by step how to apply and customise PowerPoint themes so you can create engaging, polished presentations.

What Is a Theme in PowerPoint?

A theme is more than just a background. It controls:

• Slide background styles
• Colour schemes
• Fonts for titles and body text
• Effects for shapes, SmartArt, and charts

When you apply a theme, all your slides follow the same design rules, making your presentation look consistent and professional.

Step 1: Applying a Theme

When you first open PowerPoint, you’ll usually see a selection of themes to choose from.

From the Start Screen:

1. Open PowerPoint.
2. On the welcome screen, you’ll see built-in themes.
3. Click one to start your presentation.

From the Design Tab:

1. Open an existing presentation.
2. Go to the Design tab on the Ribbon.
3. In the Themes group, you’ll see thumbnails of available themes.
4. Hover over a theme to preview it, then click to apply.

Applying a theme instantly updates the look of your entire presentation.

Step 2: Using Theme Variants

Many themes come with built-in variants — different colour schemes or background styles.

1. On the Design tab, click the dropdown arrow in the Variants group.
2. Choose a colour, font, or background variation.

Variants allow you to add variety while keeping a consistent design.

Step 3: Customising Theme Colours

Sometimes the default colours don’t match your organisation’s branding or your personal style. You can change them.

1. On the Design tab, open the Variants dropdown.
2. Choose Colours > Customise Colours.
3. Select custom colours for:
   • Text and Background
   • Accent colours (used in shapes, charts, and SmartArt)
   • Hyperlinks
4. Give your custom colour set a name and save it.

This is especially useful for business presentations, where brand colours are important.

Step 4: Customising Theme Fonts

Fonts play a big role in readability and style. Each theme includes a font pair (one for headings and one for body text).

To customise:

1. On the Design tab, go to Variants > Fonts > Customise Fonts.
2. Choose your preferred heading and body fonts.
3. Save the set under a name like “Company Fonts.”

Now, whenever you apply this theme, your chosen fonts will be used consistently.

Step 5: Customising Theme Effects

Theme effects control how shapes, SmartArt, and charts look. This includes shadows, outlines, and fills.

1. On the Design tab, go to Variants > Effects.
2. Choose from built-in styles (e.g., Simple, Glossy, or Subtle).

While effects are less commonly customised, they can add polish to a presentation.

Step 6: Customising Backgrounds

Each theme includes background styles, but you can also customise them.

1. Go to the Design tab > Customise group > Format Background.
2. Choose from:
   • Solid fill
   • Gradient fill
   • Picture or texture fill
   • Pattern fill
3. Apply changes to one slide or to all slides.

Tip: Keep backgrounds simple so your text and visuals stand out.

Step 7: Saving a Custom Theme

Once you’ve customised colours, fonts, and backgrounds, you can save your work as a custom theme.

1. On the Design tab, click the dropdown in the Themes group.
2. Select Save Current Theme.
3. Name your theme and save.

Your custom theme will appear in the Custom section the next time you open PowerPoint.

Step 8: Applying a Theme to Individual Slides

By default, themes apply to the whole presentation. But sometimes you may want a different design for one or two slides.

1. Right-click the slide in the thumbnail pane.
2. Choose Apply Layout and select the style you want.

This is useful for section breaks or highlighting a special slide.

Step 9: Using Slide Master for Advanced Customisation

If you need more control, use Slide Master view. This allows you to edit layouts, placeholders, and design elements that apply across your slides.

1. Go to View > Slide Master.
2. Edit the master slide to change overall design.
3. Edit individual layouts to adjust specific slide types (title slides, content slides, etc.).

Slide Master is the best way to ensure a consistent, professional design across large presentations.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Mixing too many themes → Stick to one theme per presentation.
• Overcomplicated backgrounds → Can make text hard to read.
• Too many fonts → Use a consistent font pair.
• Clashing colours → Always check that text is readable.

Best Practices for Themes

• Choose a theme that matches the tone of your presentation (professional, creative, educational, etc.).
• Customise themes to reflect your brand identity.
• Keep it simple: clean layouts are more effective than busy ones.
• Save custom themes for future use to save time.

Final Thoughts

Applying and customising themes in PowerPoint is one of the fastest ways to make your presentations look polished and professional. With a few clicks, you can change colours, fonts, and layouts to reflect your brand or message.

If you want to learn PowerPoint properly, our structured courses are the perfect next step:

• PowerPoint Introduction – Learn the basics of creating presentations, applying themes, adding images, and running slide shows.
• PowerPoint Advanced – Master advanced features such as custom themes, slide masters, animations, and professional presentation design.

With the right training, you’ll be able to deliver presentations that look as good as they sound.

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