Excel Tutorials
Switch every color in a workbook at once, fonts, fills, charts and table styles included, or build your own branded palette from scratch. This lesson uses the Event Planner workbook from Excel Foundations, free to download below.
Follow along in the same file used in the video. No email required.
A color scheme, technically called a Theme in Excel, is a coordinated palette of about a dozen colors that every color picker in the workbook pulls from, fonts, cell fills, chart series, Table Styles and SmartArt included. Instead of manually recoloring each element, changing the active theme updates the color options everywhere at once.
This only works automatically for elements colored using Theme Colors specifically, which is the key distinction covered further down this page.
Step-by-step, matching the video above.
Click Page Layout on the ribbon.
In the Themes group, click Colors, a gallery of built-in color palettes opens.
Hovering over any palette shows a live preview on the sheet. Click one to apply it to the whole workbook.
Anything colored with Theme Colors changes instantly, cell fills, chart colors, Table Styles, all at once, without touching each element individually.
Click Colors > Customize Colors at the bottom of the gallery to open the Create New Theme Colors dialog.
Set a specific color for Text/Background 1 & 2, Accent 1 through 6, and the two Hyperlink colors, matching a brand palette if you have one.
Type a name at the bottom of the dialog and click Save. Your custom palette now appears at the top of the Colors gallery in every workbook.
| Slot | Color |
|---|---|
| Accent 1 | Blue |
| Accent 2 | Orange |
| Accent 3 | Gray |
| Accent 4 | Gold |
| Accent 5 | Light Blue |
| Accent 6 | Green |
This is what a chart or Table Style pulls from by default before you switch or customize a theme, six accent colors that everything cycles through automatically, plus the two text and two background slots.
The top two rows of any color picker in Excel look similar but behave completely differently.
The top row of swatches in a color picker, labeled Theme Colors, is tied directly to the active theme. Switch the theme later and anything using these colors updates instantly.
The row below, Standard Colors, and any custom RGB value you pick, are fixed forever. Switching the theme has zero effect on them.
A workbook that looks consistently branded can quietly become a mix of theme-linked and permanently fixed colors, so switching themes later updates only part of the sheet, not all of it.
A color from the Standard Colors row or a custom RGB pick won't update if the theme changes later. Use the top row (Theme Colors) for anything you want to stay flexible.
Page Layout > Colors changes the whole workbook's palette. Picking a fill color directly on a single cell is a one-time, local change unrelated to the theme.
Without saving, a custom color scheme has to be rebuilt from scratch in every new workbook. Save it once with a name and it's available everywhere going forward.
A palette shouldn't need rebuilding in every new file.
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Go to the Page Layout tab, click Colors in the Themes group, and choose a built-in palette from the gallery, or click Customize Colors to build your own.
On the Page Layout tab, in the Themes group, look for the Colors button, it shows a small paint-swatch icon.
Theme Colors are tied to the workbook's active theme and update automatically if the theme changes. Standard Colors are fixed values that never change, regardless of what theme is applied.
Yes, click Colors > Customize Colors, assign a color to each of the 12 theme slots, and save it with a name so it's reusable in other workbooks.
Only if you used Theme Colors when you colored them. Cells colored with Standard Colors or a custom RGB value stay exactly as they are, regardless of theme changes.
Yes, chart colors, Table Styles, and SmartArt all pull from the same theme palette, so switching themes updates all of them at once, not just cell fills.
Yes, a saved custom theme is stored as a file that can be copied to another computer, or the workbook itself carries the theme with it when shared.
In the standard Office theme, Accent 1 is blue, Accent 2 is orange, Accent 3 is gray, Accent 4 is gold, Accent 5 is light blue, and Accent 6 is green, though this can vary if a different built-in theme is active.
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