Theme Builder Anomalies: Make Themes Compatible with PowerPoint

Working with Themes in various versions of Microsoft Office (and PowerPoint), we stumbled into a huge road-block: Theme THMX files saved in Theme Builder refused to be applied in PowerPoint 2010 (Windows) and 2011 (Mac). Strangely, these THMX files continued to work in PowerPoint 2007 (Windows) and 2008 (Mac). We compared the THMX files created by Theme Builder to those saved from within PowerPoint, and realized that Theme Builder actually removes content from THMX files. Worse, it does so without warning, and you can easily lose all your Slide Layouts, Slide Master, basic presentation info, and even the THMX file’s thumbnail by just opening a perfectly good THMX and re-saving it within Theme Builder! Unfortunately, there are some parameters of a THMX file that are not exposed in PowerPoint. You must edit these either using an XML editor or Theme Builder.

Explore for all versions of PowerPoint.

Tutorial Code: 04 06 03
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