Changing the Normal Template Theme

[B._D.]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I have 2 basic questions: changing the theme used by the default template and why Word docs now require a theme.

I've read other questions and replies that explained how to change default fonts and margins; that doesn't go to the root of the problem. I want to change the entire default theme used by the normal template. So far, I haven't found any answers to that.

I'll be completely honest. I despise the fonts and appearance of the "Office" theme that the normal template uses. Cambria and the heading font that I have used so little that I can't even remember its name are not clean and easily readable. In fact, Cambria is practically unreadable unless I increase it to at least 14 pt; 16 pt is even better. Having a header in a different font is distracting and looks odd and out of place anywhere outside of ads and posters.

I really, really like the "Aspect" theme. Verdana is clean and easy to read. I can set it to 12 pt, and it's still legible without turning zoom up to 150% or changing it up to 14 pt. Having the header in the same font looks cleaner, is less distracting, and is normal for a written document.

The theme colors make no difference to me. In fact,I can't make any assessment of the colors selected for each theme, because I never use them. I don't have any idea why having preselected colors is important to a theme, since test papers, legal briefs, and almost every other word-processing doc ever typed not only do not need colors but ARE required to be in black print on white paper. I do know I have never had a use for them and I can't imagine a need for them. If anyone does have some use for them, I'm open to suggestion.

So colors are not a deciding factor in choosing a theme. Clarity and readability are absolutely deciding factors in choosing a theme.

I would also like to know why on earth I have to have a "theme" in the first place. It's annoying to no end (or at least to the end that I'm swearing at it and my MacBook), and they don't seem to serve much purpose beyond making it impossible to just open Word and start typing my documents. Previous versions of Word, especially for PC machines, didn't require "themes." Is this just something to get Mac users so angry and frustrated with Word for Mac that they'll switch back to PCs?

I can sort of understand having them for when you want to create a "themed" document. But, to be honest, I can't even imagine what a "themed" document would be or when I would use one. Maybe I've spent too much time reading and writing research reports and briefs; too many days taking notes in class; too many test and term papers. I can't imagine the need for colored fonts or fancy captions with a different colored background; for colored paper or headers in a different font or different font color . There maybe times and places they have some use. But for the writing I do, they really seem pointless Not being able to create ANY document without a theme is almost too painful to describe without using obscenities.

Which brings me back to my questions.

Why does Word for Mac require themes in the first place? What actual real world purpose do they serve? Why can't they just be an option to choose if you ever find you need one?

Secondly, since Word absolutely requires a "theme" for you to type any document, how do I change the theme that "normal.dotm" uses for default? How do I get rid of "Office" and replace it with "Aspect?

Sorry for the ranting. I've just reached the end of my tolerance for this issue.

Thank you for any information and assistance that any of you may have.

B.D.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Whatever your Name Is:

Let's see see if we can simplify this a bit for you

1) Nature and computers both abhor a vacuum. So like "Fonts" and "Styles"
the Theme cannot be "Nothing". If you set it to "0" (quite possible, since
it is in fact an integer) then the document will have the "Office" theme.

2) You can change the Office theme as you wish. If you set all the colours
to black and white, you've done the job.

3) The PURPOSE of themes is to instantly switch matched sets of colours,
styles, and fonts. So: Colours are the "purpose" of themes. If you do not
need colours, then it's not worth fiddling with themes.

Personally, I see very little use for this facility. Given that the
implementation of themes in Office Mac is very, very minimal, I think I
would do as you are suggesting, customise the Office theme to your liking
and forget about them.

The implementation of Themes on the PC is much more sophisticated. Word on
the PC has had themes since they first appeared in Word 2000 or 2002, I am
not sure which; but they were not usefully implemented until 2007. Previous
versions of Mac Word did not have them at all.

In Word 2007, you can define Style Sets within a Theme, which enables very
powerful and consistent document definitions. Instead of having to maintain
a separate template for each kind of document in a firm, you can maintain a
single Theme, with individual style sets for the document types.

4) If Cambria and Calibri look bad on your screen, your font smoothing is
not set appropriately for your monitor. They should both look better than
Verdana. Verdana was designed as an "on screen" font, so it does look got
when it is not printed. But The new fonts are actually a very nice piece of
work and will look extremely good both on paper and on-screen.

I say this because I discovered last week that MY font smoothing was mis-set
on a new computer, and that's how I knew.

If you are looking for the themes, they are here:
Mac HDD:Applications:Microsoft Office 2008:Office:Media:Templates:Office
Themes:

You will also need to look here:
Mac HDD:Users:john:Library:Application Support:Microsoft:Office:User
Templates:My Themes:

There won't be anything in there unless you have changed one. Anything that
is in there will override anything in the first folder.

Incidentally, if you go poking around, you will find that there is a Themes
folder in Word 2004 as well

The Office theme does not in fact exist -- it is literally "Theme 0", the
built-in defaults. However, if you make a change to it and safe it, it
should then appear as a file for you.

You will find various settings for the Office theme -- don't try to delete
those or you run the risk that Office will get very sick indeed. Changing
is fine, deleting is not.

I wouldn't spend much time on Themes in Office 2008. We do not have most of
the functionality, and we certainly do not have the tools needed to change
them easily, yet.

You will find Themes easier to attack if you do it within PowerPoint: the
theme mechanism is better there. And we can hope to get a full version in
the next version of Office.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I have 2 basic questions: changing the theme used by the default template and
why Word docs now require a theme.

I've read other questions and replies that explained how to change default
fonts and margins; that doesn't go to the root of the problem. I want to
change the entire default theme used by the normal template. So far, I haven't
found any answers to that.

I'll be completely honest. I despise the fonts and appearance of the "Office"
theme that the normal template uses. Cambria and the heading font that I have
used so little that I can't even remember its name are not clean and easily
readable. In fact, Cambria is practically unreadable unless I increase it to
at least 14 pt; 16 pt is even better. Having a header in a different font is
distracting and looks odd and out of place anywhere outside of ads and
posters.

I really, really like the "Aspect" theme. Verdana is clean and easy to read. I
can set it to 12 pt, and it's still legible without turning zoom up to 150% or
changing it up to 14 pt. Having the header in the same font looks cleaner, is
less distracting, and is normal for a written document.

The theme colors make no difference to me. In fact,I can't make any assessment
of the colors selected for each theme, because I never use them. I don't have
any idea why having preselected colors is important to a theme, since test
papers, legal briefs, and almost every other word-processing doc ever typed
not only do not need colors but ARE required to be in black print on white
paper. I do know I have never had a use for them and I can't imagine a need
for them. If anyone does have some use for them, I'm open to suggestion.

So colors are not a deciding factor in choosing a theme. Clarity and
readability are absolutely deciding factors in choosing a theme.

I would also like to know why on earth I have to have a "theme" in the first
place. It's annoying to no end (or at least to the end that I'm swearing at it
and my MacBook), and they don't seem to serve much purpose beyond making it
impossible to just open Word and start typing my documents. Previous versions
of Word, especially for PC machines, didn't require "themes." Is this just
something to get Mac users so angry and frustrated with Word for Mac that
they'll switch back to PCs?

I can sort of understand having them for when you want to create a "themed"
document. But, to be honest, I can't even imagine what a "themed" document
would be or when I would use one. Maybe I've spent too much time reading and
writing research reports and briefs; too many days taking notes in class; too
many test and term papers. I can't imagine the need for colored fonts or fancy
captions with a different colored background; for colored paper or headers in
a different font or different font color . There maybe times and places they
have some use. But for the writing I do, they really seem pointless Not being
able to create ANY document without a theme is almost too painful to describe
without using obscenities.

Which brings me back to my questions.

Why does Word for Mac require themes in the first place? What actual real
world purpose do they serve? Why can't they just be an option to choose if you
ever find you need one?

Secondly, since Word absolutely requires a "theme" for you to type any
document, how do I change the theme that "normal.dotm" uses for default? How
do I get rid of "Office" and replace it with "Aspect?

Sorry for the ranting. I've just reached the end of my tolerance for this
issue.

Thank you for any information and assistance that any of you may have.

B.D.

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi B.D.;

I won't get into a pro/con on them simply because the existence of Themes is
something we users have to accept - I don't think they're going away any
time soon They're an integral part of 2007 on the PC as well, but need
not be as much of an imposition as you seem to find them to be. Maybe I can
make life a bit easier & I'm sure you'll hear from others as well.

Keep in mind that Document Themes are intertwined with Word's built-in
Styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.). If you create your own Styles you can
avoid Themes altogether. You can also modify the built-in styles to use
formatting other than what's associated with them by default. This concept
of using styles to control formatting really isn't much different than in
previous versions - It's just that having Themes permits faster & more
efficient document-wide changes, but the pre-defined choices weren't
available. You just can't edit the built-in Themes.

If there is a particular Theme you'd prefer as the default open your
Normal.dotm template, select the preferred Theme, then type a space & delete
it (not Undo) to "dirty" the template. Save & close the template. New docs
from that point on will use your choice as the default. You can also create
& save your own custom Themes which will automatically be added to the top
of the list. They can be applied & treated the same as the built-in Themes.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[MacEvansCB]

You know ... People like B.D. and I wouldn't get so upset with the Themes in Word 2008 if the default office theme 0 was B&W with no colors and used ARIEL and TIMES NEW ROMAN for the default fonts. Opening Word and staring a new document with Cambria and purple headings is really really annoying, especially with no SIMPLE EASY way to change themes in Word. Further, there is no B&W theme color to select ... the closest thing is Grayscale which leaves me with gray headings instead of black headings. Who came up with all these silly default choices anyway??????

 

[MacEvansCB]

So please explain to me why: When I first start using Office 2008 and go into Word, that I **HAVE** to open PowerPoint, create a new theme, change the default fonts in the theme, change all the colors in the theme, save the theme, go back to Word, open the normal template in Word, change the theme to my new theme, and then save the normal template .... ALL JUST TO GET BACK TO WHERE I WAS IN PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF OFFICE????????

 

[John McGhie]

Well, I don't think anyone in here has an answer: you need to address such
questions to Microsoft.

I don't use themes in Word at all, even in Word 2007 where they are fully
implemented (and it DOES have a "black and white" theme!)

Themes enable you to change the colours and fonts in a document with the
click of a button. Quite why they imagined that someone would want to do
that, I have no idea.

It's somewhat insulting to a graphics designer or documentation professional
to suggest that they do not get their colours correct on the first attempt,
or that their output is achieved by trial and error!

I think this mechanism was invented by someone who has no experience of
using Word for professional documentation, and doesn't actually understand
Cascading Style Sheets and XML Transforms either.

What we "wanted" was CSS and XSLT. What we got appears to be the result of
some 20-something trainee being captivated by brightly-coloured moving
lights. Quite sad.

If I were you I would simply ignore Themes altogether in Word. Replace your
Normal.dotm with one created in any other version of Word and you will be
back to black and white and need never be bothered with themes again.
Hopefully we should get real XML handling in Office 2010.

However, before you completely dismiss the new fonts, print a few out and
have a look at them. The fonts are part of a Microsoft-wide updating of its
core fonts. Many graphics designers I respect have suggested that they have
really done a very good job with the new fonts.

Hope this helps

So please explain to me why: When I first start using Office 2008 and go into
Word, that I **HAVE** to open PowerPoint, create a new theme, change the
default fonts in the theme, change all the colors in the theme, save the
theme, go back to Word, open the normal template in Word, change the theme to
my new theme, and then save the normal template .... ALL JUST TO GET BACK TO
WHERE I WAS IN PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF OFFICE????????

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

I couldn't agree with you more & I'm sure there are thousands of others who
feel the same way. It's as though it was designed to be hawked on QVC rather
than used by anyone with even semi-professional requirements. However, it
does no good to bemoan it here This is a community of users who have
nothing to do with the design of the program... If we *did* it wouldn't have
shipped this way in the first place.

Register your dissatisfaction where it will carry some weight. Use Help>
Send Feedback or the Contact Us link through the Mactopia web site.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac