Theme Fonts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Theme Fonts, Theme Colors, and Theme Effects are individual components contained within each Theme in PowerPoint. These influence how individual slides in your presentation look. Figure 1 below shows examples of the same slide with different Themes applied. Note that while all the slides differ in terms of colors, fonts, and effects applied, their text content is still the same.

Figure 1: Variations of the same slide with different Themes applied

When you apply a different Theme to your PowerPoint presentation, the fonts, colors, and effects applied to your slides change. Unless you override this on a per slide basis, these changes show up in all slides in the presentation. The resulting slides all look consistent.

In this tutorial, we'll explore how Theme Fonts work in your presentation. Theme Fonts are pre-decided pairs of fonts: one of these fonts is used for titles (known as the Theme Headings font), and other font is used for everything else (known as the Theme Body font). When you select any text in your PowerPoint presentation, and then access the Fonts list within the Formatting toolbar you'll notice the Theme Headings and Theme Body font that's allocated for the active Theme right at the top of the Fonts drop-down gallery, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below.

Figure 2: Theme Headings and Theme Body fonts being displayed within the Fonts drop-down gallery

You are not limited to use the default Theme Fonts set for your presentation. You can always scroll down the Fonts drop-down list and select another font for any individual text object. However, doing so will override the active Theme of your presentation. For that matter, you are not even limited to the default Theme Fonts set associated with the active Theme applied to the presentation. There are many readymade Theme Fonts sets available within PowerPoint 2011 that you can switch to. Follow these steps learn more:

1. Create a new presentation and apply a Theme to it, or open an existing presentation which has a Theme applied. For this tutorial we have created a new presentation and applied the Inkwell Theme, as shown in Figure 3 below. You can apply any other Theme.
2. 
   Figure 3: Presentation with a Theme applied
2. Navigate to Themes tab of the Ribbon, and locate Theme Options group. Within the Theme Options group, click the Fonts button to bring up the Fonts drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 4.
3. 
   Figure 4: Fonts drop-down gallery
4. Note that the highlighted Theme Fonts set is always the same name as the active Theme of the presentation. In this case, the Theme Fonts set active is Inkwell, as shown in Figure 4, above.
3. Within the Fonts drop-down gallery choose any of the Theme Fonts sets. Figure 5 below shows a different Theme Font set called Median being selected. When you have decided which Theme Fonts set you prefer, click on that Theme Fonts set to apply it to your presentation.
4. 
   Figure 6: Median Theme Fonts set being selected
4. This will change the Theme Font set for your presentation slides, as shown in Figure 7 (compare with Figure 3, above). Note that the overall Theme is not changed. The slide still sports the same layout, colors, effects, etc. It's just the fonts that have changed.
5. 
   Figure 7: Theme Font changed
5. Now, select some text and access the Fonts drop-down list within the Formatting toolbar. You'll notice the Theme Headings and Theme Body fonts that are allocated for the active Theme right at the top of the Fonts drop-down gallery are now changed, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8, below. Compare it with Figure 2, shown earlier on this page.
6. 
   Figure 8: Changed Theme Headings and Theme Body fonts
6. Save your presentation often.