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When you create a new Excel workbook, you’ll notice that it always reverts to the Office theme color by default.

However, in some cases, you might have a set of defined theme colors that you want to use every time you create a new workbook.

Instead of changing the colors of all the elements in the workbook one by one, Excel allows you to store a custom theme that you can apply with a few clicks.

Unfortunately, unlike Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel does not have an option to set a custom theme as the default theme.

Luckily, there is a workaround to do this on Microsoft Excel. To do this, save an empty Excel sheet containing the desired theme colors as an Excel template inside the Excel Start folder.

A theme is a combination of colors, fonts and effects.

This is especially significant when you need to create charts and you want them to look uniform using a certain color palette for the lines and bars.

Each newly-created chart applies the Office themeby default, and so, pre-defining the colors of Series 1, Series 2, and so on, and then saving it as a theme will save you the time of having to change them every time you add a new chart.

To define a new custom theme:

1. Go to the Page Layout tab.
2. Select Colors in the Themes section.
3. Select Customize Colors.

4. In the window popup, change the colors according to your preferred palette.

5. Rename the theme.

6. Click Save.

As an example, I renamed the theme as “LG Default 1”. You will find the new custom theme under Page Layout > Colors. Apart from defining colors, the fonts and effects can be defined as well.

Once you have finalized the tweaks for all three components, you can save it as a theme. To do this:

1. Go to Page Layout tab.
2. Select Themes.
3. Select Save Current Theme.

4. Rename the file name of the theme.

5. Make sure that for Save as type, “Office Theme” is selected.

6. Click on Save.

For this example, I have saved it using the filename “Theme LG Default”.

It is saved under Document Themes under the Templates folder.

Once the custom theme has been created, it can now be set as the default Excel theme.

To do this:

1. Open a new blank workbook.
2. Go to Themes under the Page Layout tab.
3. Select the custom theme you want to set as default. This is the only change that is made to this workbook. Make sure to keep the workbook blank.

4. Go to File and select Save As.

5. Keep the file name as is but delete the number at the end (e.g. “Book” instead of “Book 1”).

6. Under the Save As type dropdown, select Excel Template.

7. Save it directly in the XLSTART folder, which you will need to locate manually. If you are unable to locate it in the Save window, save it in the Desktop in the meantime and locate the folder using the Explorer.

8. Click Save.

9. Close Microsoft Excel.

If you are unable to locate the Excel Start folder:

1. Open the Explorer
2. Type XLSTART in the search box.
3. Once it is found, go to the Desktop.
4. Right click on the template you have saved. Select Cut. Another way to do this is to press CTRL + X.
5. Go to the XLSTART folder. Do a right click and select Paste, or press CTRL + V.

Windows longhorn iso download. To know if the new theme has been successfully set as the default theme, create a new Excel workbook.

Go to Page Layout > Themes.

It should show that your custom theme is currently in use.

To change colors of the current workbook:

1. On the Page Layout tab, in the Themesgroup, click Theme Colors:

2. Click Customize Colors..:

3. In the Create New Theme Colors dialog box, underTheme colors, click the button of the theme color element that you want to change:

4. Under Theme Colors, select the colors that youwant to use:

In the Create New Theme Colors dialog box, under Sample, you can see the effect of thechanges that you make.

5. Repeat step 3 and 4 for all of the theme color elementsthat you want to change.

6. In the Name box, type an appropriate name for thenew theme colors.

7. Click Save.

Note: To revert all theme color elements to their original theme colors, you can clickReset before you click Save.

If you would like to make these color changes apply to all new workbooks that you create, youneed to create a default workbook template.

1. On the Page Layout tab, in the Themesgroup, click Themes.

2. Click Save Current Theme..:

3. In the File Name box, type an appropriate name forthe theme.

Note: A custom document theme is saved in the Document Themes folder and isautomatically added to the list of custom themes.

4. On the File tab, choose Save As.

5. In the Save Current Theme dialog box, was selectedOffice Theme (*.thmx) and chose the Document Themes folder as the location. You can useyour own filename instead of proposed Theme1.thmx.

The location of the Document Themes folder may vary, but it is usually located here:

C:Users<user name>AppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplatesDocument Themes

6. Click Save.

See also this tip in French:Comment modifier les couleurs par défaut qu'Excel utilise pour les séries de graphiques.