Hi, Scott,
It's a good question! (For the record, I think the original poster is asking
something a little different, but this is still related.)
Options:
1. If you email the THMX file to your users and they save it (say, to their
desktop) and double-click it, a presentation based on that theme will open
in PPT. The users can then File | Save As and choose Office Theme (*.THMX),
and they'll be taken to the appropriate folder to save the THMX in so it
will be available to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It will show up in the
Custom area of the Design tab in PPT. In Word it will be in the Page Layout
tab under Themes.
2. Alternatively, they can go to the Design tab, expand the themes gallery
and choose "save current theme."
3. You can, as you mentioned, tell them to navigate to the appropriate
folder (Users>...>Microsoft>Templates>Document Themes) and save the THMX
there directly.
I don't know that one way is any better than the other, to tell you the
truth. I think it really depends on your users. Maybe you can give them the
option?
You know, they will probably need to rename the theme if they use options 1
or 2. In option 1, the file will be named "Presentation1.thmx," which isn't
very descriptive. In option 2, it's Theme1.thmx, which isn't much better. If
that's going to be a problem, then use the "save it in this folder" option
instead.
I am sitting here wondering if AppData is usually a hidden folder, though.
I'm 99% sure it is, and that could also be problematic. Probably more
problematic than having them rename the THMX file when the Save As from PPT,
in fact.
To be honest, IT staff usually end up rolling out my themes and templates --
they can do some kind of logon script so the files are put in the
appropriate places when the user logs onto the network. (As you can probably
tell, I don't know the details there -- but every network-type guy I've ever
known knows how to do this kind of thing.)
In short, I don't have a good "best practices" suggestion for you. Sorry.
Oh, crap. I just remembered you said template -- loosely, template.
Templates are different. A PPT template is not accessible to the Word and
Excel files, no matter what folder you put them in. If you want Excel and
Word to have the same colors, fonts and effects available, you must send a
THMX file.
You may also want to send a PowerPoint template file (PPTX, POTX, etc.) as
well. And maybe a Word template (DOTX) and an Excel template (XLTX) as well.
In short, if you're talking about a POTX file, the user saves to his desktop
(or wherever). When the user double-clicks the POTX, a new PPTX file based
on the template opens. This is handy so you don't mess up your actual
template file. Remember -- a template file usually has sample slides in it.
If you're talking about a PPTX file, when the user double-clicks the PPTX,
*that file* opens and the user makes changes to it. They may even save the
changes by mistake.
I think that, in many ways, it's safer to provide a POTX. But it isn't
critical -- a PPTX will work just as well. You can even apply a PPTX as a
template.
Scenario: User opens old file, wants to apply new look. User goes to Design
tab | Browse for Themes. When they do this, all themed files show -- that
means POTX, PPTX and THMX will all show up, and the user can select any of
them to apply the underlying theme to the current presentation. These files
don't have to be stored anywhere in particular, really. (If you want them to
show up in the File | New | My Templates area, though, you must save them in
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\ See
http://www.echosvoice.com/2007/whatgoeswhere.htm ) It's only THMX files that
have to be in a specific location so they show up in Page Layout (Word,
Excel) and the Design tab (PPT).
Probably you'll want to send a POTX and a THMX, is my guess.
--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
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