Ack, I meant "themes", not styles. Sorry for the misdirection in the subject. Can't edit it now!



I'm in charge of Word templates for my company. I'm trying to work out the best way to make templates that contain everything people need to easily create corporate documents.

I'm from a design background and in InDesign I'd create colours in the colour palette and then save the document as a template.

Will themes do the same thing? If I create a custom theme with the corporate colours, and then save a document using it as a template, will that theme with the colour drop-down be available to everyone who opens that template?

If they have to manually install the theme then that idea is out the window.

If I use the theme on my machine to create the document, will the colours at least "stick" when they open it, i.e. it won't revert back to the standard Office theme colours?

Thanks!

You can save all the elements you are talking about in a Template. I don't think you are really talking about what Word calls a Theme. Templates, including Styles and background colors can be shared. Style Sets can be shared.

Look at Templates in Microsoft Word.

See http://www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=142368

A theme is all of the things you discuss that can be applied to an individual document or template. You can, instead, apply your theme to your templates.

If you want your users to be able to change the look and feel of their own documents that they do not create from one of your templates to match your theme, you would be relying on skills far in excess of those needed to install a theme, IMO.