Excel theme generator
Create a custom Excel theme on a live workbook. Set your brand's theme colors and fonts, restyle Excel's cell styles and table style, then download an Excel template or an Office theme.
- Free, no account needed
- Excel for Windows and Mac
What you can customize in your Excel theme
Everything Excel lets a theme or template set up, on a workbook preview with cell styles, a table and charts.
Theme colors
All 12 theme colors: the dark and light text and background colors, Accent 1 to 6 and both hyperlink colors. Type your brand's hex codes or start from an Office palette.
Color picker preview
See the tints and shades Excel builds from your colors, laid out the way its color picker shows them.
Theme fonts
A heading font and a body font. Every cell starts in the body font, and the template sets the default font size too.
Cell styles
Restyle Title, Heading 1 to 4, Total, Good, Bad and Neutral in Excel's Cell Styles gallery: font, size, color, fill and borders.
Table style
Your own table style for the header row, banded rows, row lines, first column and total row, set as the default for new tables.
Worksheet
Turn gridlines off so new sheets start clean, like a finished report.
How to create a custom Excel theme, in minutes
Pick your theme colors
Start from the Office palette or type your brand's hex codes. The workbook, its charts and the color picker update as you go.
Choose the fonts
Pick a heading font and a body font from common Office fonts such as Aptos, Calibri, Georgia and Segoe UI.
Style cells and tables
Click a title, heading, total or table in the preview to open its style and change it.
Download it for Excel
Get an Excel template (.xltx) with everything, or an Office theme (.thmx) with the colors and fonts.
Excel template or Office theme: which file?
An Office theme (.thmx) carries only the colors and fonts, so you can apply it to any workbook. An Excel template (.xltx) carries the whole setup and is how you make it the default for new workbooks.
| Includes | Excel template (.xltx) | Office theme (.thmx) |
|---|---|---|
| Theme colors and fonts | Yes | Yes |
| Cell styles | Yes | No |
| Default table style | Yes | No |
| Default font size and gridlines | Yes | No |
| Works in Word and PowerPoint | No | Yes |
| How to use it | Open it to start a new workbook, or save it as Book.xltx to make it the default. | In Excel, choose Page Layout › Themes and browse for the file. |
Make your theme the default in Excel
Excel has no Set as Default button for themes. Instead, it starts every new workbook from a template named Book.xltx in its startup folder, if there is one. The Excel template you download here is made for that, so new workbooks open with your theme colors, fonts, cell styles and table style.
- Windows: save the Excel template as Book.xltx in your XLSTART folder, usually
C:\. Excel lists the exact folder under File › Options › Trust Center › Trust Center Settings › Trusted Locations.Users\ <you>\ AppData\ Roaming\ Microsoft\ Excel\ XLSTART - Mac: open the template in Excel, choose File › Save as Template, name it Book and save it in
~/.Library/ Group Containers/ UBF8T346G9.Office/ User Content/ Start-up/ Excel - Restart Excel. New workbooks now start with your theme.
This is also how you change Excel's default font for everyone who uses the template: every cell starts in the theme's body font. To change it on just your own computer, Excel has a default font setting under File › Options › General, or Excel › Preferences › General on a Mac.
Microsoft's guides: Customize how Excel starts · Excel for Mac
Excel themes, answered
What is an Excel theme?
An Excel theme is a set of 12 colors, a heading font, a body font and shape effects that a workbook uses for its cells, tables, charts and shapes. Change the theme and everything that uses theme colors and fonts updates at once. Word and PowerPoint use the same kind of theme.
How do I create a custom theme in Excel?
In Excel, set the colors under Page Layout › Colors › Customize Colors, set the fonts under Page Layout › Fonts › Customize Fonts, and save them with Page Layout › Themes › Save Current Theme. The pwrtheme Excel theme generator does the same on a live workbook, adds cell styles and a table style, and gives you the finished file to download.
How do I make a custom theme the default in Excel?
Excel has no Set as Default button for themes. Instead, save a workbook that uses the theme as a template named Book.xltx in Excel's startup folder and restart Excel. New workbooks then start from that template. The Excel template from pwrtheme is ready for this and also carries your cell styles and table style.
Where is the XLSTART folder?
On Windows it is usually C:\Users\<your user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART. Excel lists the exact path under File › Options › Trust Center › Trust Center Settings › Trusted Locations. On a Mac, the startup folder is ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Start-up/Excel.
How do I change the default font in Excel?
For your own computer, choose File › Options › General on Windows, or Excel › Preferences › General on a Mac, pick the default font and size, and restart Excel. To give other people the same default font, put it in a template: the body font of a theme is the font every cell starts in, so a Book.xltx template with your body font gives every new workbook that font.
What is a .thmx file?
A .thmx file is an Office theme. It stores theme colors, fonts and effects, and Excel, Word and PowerPoint can all apply it. In Excel, choose Page Layout › Themes and browse for the file to apply it to the open workbook.
Can I set a default table style in Excel?
Yes. Right-click a style in the Table Styles gallery and choose Set As Default, and new tables in that workbook use it. The Excel template from pwrtheme already has your custom table style set as the default, so every new table starts with it.
Why does my theme font look different on another computer?
Excel doesn't embed fonts in a workbook. If a theme font isn't installed, Excel shows a substitute font instead. Pick fonts that everyone has: the Aptos fonts download automatically with Microsoft 365, while some Windows fonts, such as Segoe UI, may be missing on a Mac.
Is the Excel theme generator free?
Yes. The Excel theme generator is free and doesn't need an account. The files it makes work in Excel for Windows and Excel for Mac.
Every new workbook, on brand.
Set your colors, fonts and styles once and stop reformatting every file by hand.
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