Themes in Excel are custom combinations of fonts, styles, and colors. When applied, they add a uniform and unique design aesthetic to your sheets. Fortunately, they’re easy to use inside Excel. Let’s learn how to use themes in Microsoft Excel.
How to Use Themes in Excel
Themes, as their name suggests, are custom styles that you can add to any spreadsheet. Excel itself comes with a series of built-in themes, as do many third-party and premium templates. You can also create and use your own themes again and again. At their core, themes are presets that apply certain designs to content in your spreadsheets.
To use themes in Excel, you don’t have to take any special steps. Again, themes apply design styles to existing content. You don’t have to build content around themes; instead, themes work with the content and data you’ve already added.
Let’s imagine that you have a series of rows and columns and want to use a custom theme. To get started, go to the Page Layout tab. You’ll find this, among many other options, on Excel’s ribbon, found at the top of your screen.
Theme controls sit on the left-hand side, beneath the Home and Insert tab buttons. To use a theme in Excel, click on the Themes dropdown. You’ll see a variety of Theme thumbnails appear. You can choose from the existing options, browse for themes online, or add your own custom themes.
In this example, click on one of the pre-built option thumbnails, like Droplet. Watch as your text and graphics instantly transform. New fonts are applied, and the color and design of the chart will automatically change as well.
As you can see, themes in Excel are an easy way to add new and unique styles to any spreadsheet, with only a few clicks.