MS Office 101

The Theme For Today Is...

Well... Themes.

MS Word Themes to be exact.

If you're running at least Word 2000 then you may not know i,t but there are some pretty cool setups for web pages, e-mails (for those who use Word for e-mails) and documents that are to be viewed.

This is a great way to create exciting looks for any document that will be used to display information or sent out electronically as a flier or whatever.

A theme includes elements like a background image, coordinated color scheme, bullets, font styles, horizontal lines, hyperlink colors, table border colors and other document items.

Themes are for the looks of the document only—nothing else.

Once you apply a theme, all of the settings are at your fingertips, so creating and keeping a document that looks professional and eye-catching is almost fool-proof.

Ready to take a closer look at MS Word Themes?

Yes? Good because that's exactly what's coming right up.

Office Tip of the Day

MS Word Themes

OK, so you've decided a theme might be the way to go and you're ready to take a look at all the choices.

Yeah :-)

Let's dive right in.

To find the themes you need to go to the Format menu, Theme choice. (Alt then O then H works too.)

The Theme window will open.

On the left you have a list of themes to choose from. As you pick each name a preview will appear on the right.

As you may have noticed, the previews contain examples of the font styles applied to headings and body text as well as examples of lines, bullets and hyperlinks.

At the bottom you have 3 options to check or uncheck as you see fit.

"Vivid Colors" will change colors of styles, borders and document backgrounds to a brighter setting.

"Active Graphics" will display animated graphics—if the theme contains them. The animations can be seen when you view the page in a web browser.

"Background Image" when checked applies the current theme background to the document. If you uncheck this a color will replace the image. It can later be changed using the Format menu, Background choice and then select a color from the palette.

When you're done making all your choices click OK.

Voila!

You're returned to your document with the theme applied and everything looking professional and eye-catching.

If you wish to change your theme, or remove it, then return to the Theme window and choose a new item from the list. (The choice of None is at the top of the list and will remove the theme.)

You can either apply a theme to a document before you begin typing or you can apply it after it's done—whatever you need.

It's also something to note that if you pull down the Style list (to the left of the Font list) the heading styles from the theme are right there for you to choose from.

This also applies to the cool bullets automatically appearing when you click the bullet button as well as the other items from the theme.

As I said before—all the elements are at your fingertips, helping you to keep the document coordinated and professional looking.

~ April

PS: just as a word of caution... themes are for items viewed electronically. You will not see these elements on printouts or in any document view besides the Web Layout view. So, don't panic if you temporarily lose the theme—simply go back to the Web Layout view and everything will be just as you left it.