The Flat Theme - Best Practices

The Flat Theme – Best Practices

Posted on June 19, 2018 by jkorchok - Updated on October 13, 2022

I’m writing an article or two about Office Effects Themes and how you can modify them. As an example, I created the Brandwares Flat Theme, which will be of use to designers as is. This theme file gets rid of the bulgy 3-D shapes, glows and hokey shadows of the standard Microsoft themes and relies only on tints, shades and outline variations. You can use this example in 2 ways: as a theme file that you can modify and send as your own, and as an Effects Theme file that can be installed in Office for Windows to provide access to flat shapes in all other themes.

Here you can download the Flat Theme. It’s also available on our Downloads page. After downloading, you can open it in PowerPoint, create new font and color themes, apply them, then resave as a new theme. The flat shapes will travel with the theme and be automatically applied to any deck that uses the theme. If you’re an Office for Mac user, you’ll have to create a font theme using this article: XML Hacking: Font Themes.

The Flat Theme – Specs

There are 7 variants in each row of the the Shape Styles dialog, each showing the dk1 color as a background plus the 6 Accent colors. The first 2 rows feature a 0.5pt outline on the shape in a darker variant of the accent color, with the first row showing a white shape background and the second row the relevant accent color.

The third row is the one I choose most of the time: a flat shape with no outline.

The fourth row has a 50% screened-back background color with black text.

The fills for the 5th and 6th rows are 2 progressively darker shades of the accent colors. The 5th row shows a 50% shade of the color, while the 6th is a two-layer multiplier fill with a 50% shade overlaying a 50% tint. I’ve written at length about effects themes and their construction in my book about OOXML Hacking.

Users of Office 2016 for Windows and for Mac will see an additional group of Presets below the theme shape styles. Except for the stroke weight in row 2, these fills are generated automatically by the program and cannot be modified by XML.

The Flat Theme – Installing as Effects Theme

You can also use the Flat Theme as a new effects theme in Windows versions of Excel, PowerPoint or Word (Office for Mac will display effects themes embedded in a theme or template, but there is no support in the program interface for applying a different effects theme). Then it will appear in the Theme Effects dropdown of Office for Windows along with the standard Microsoft themes. Here are the steps to do that:

Download the Flat Theme from the link above and unzip it.
Change the file name from BrandwaresFlatShapes.thmx to Flat.eftx. The first part of the name can be something other than Flat, but the ending must be .eftx. No other change to the theme file is needed.
Close all Office programs.
Copy the file to the same folder as the Microsoft Theme Effects files:

32-bit Office 2007: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 12\Theme Effects

64-bit Office 2007: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 12\Theme Effects

32-bit Office 2010: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 14\Theme Effects

64-bit Office 2010: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 14\Theme Effects

32-bit Office 2013: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Document Themes 15\Theme Effects

64-bit Office 2013: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Document Themes 15\Theme Effects

32-bit Office 2016, 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Document Themes 16\Theme Effects

64-bit Office 2016, 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Document Themes 16\Theme Effects

With Office 2013 and 2016, there may not be a root folder, but then the Document Themes folder will be inside Microsoft Office, eliminating one level.

Restart an Office program and you’ll see a new addition to the Effects dropdown:

Brandwares