Has anyone noticed that Themes are now missing?

Anonymous

Has anyone noticed that themes disappeared from all Word, Excel, and PowerPoint?

I had Wood Type and Banded the other day. However, they have disappeared from the list of themes, along with many other themes. Any idea on why this occured?

Specifications

Operating System: Windows 8.1

Office: Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus (15.0.4667.1002)

EDIT - 1/20/15

I updated the Title and original post to state theme(s) instead of template(s). I apologize for any confusion.

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Anonymous

Can you add the Parrallax theme to your one drive so I can download it. The dropbox you gave is no longer there.

thanks.

Short answer: I thought I was going to have to say no because my 2013 systems don't have all the themes available. But I was able to scare up a bunch of them, so they've been added to my OneDrive folder. http://1drv.ms/1yrdZRq

Long answer: For those of you just coming into this thread, a bunch of themes have been missing from the PowerPoint Start screen. (This is the same screen you can also access by choosing File | New in PowerPoint.)

Note: The themes that usually show on the PowerPoint Start screen are actually superthemes. Superthemes are like "regular" themes, but they give you variants. Variants are the options you see when you click one of the themes in the Start screen and get that dialog with different color options, pattern options, etc. You also see these variants on the Design tab of the Ribbon.

If you're missing the superthemes, you can get them here on my OneDrive: http://1drv.ms/1yrdZRq

Download the THMX files. Do NOT open them and save them; this will strip out the variants. Instead, just download them and put them in this folder: C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes. The superthemes must be placed here in order for the variants to be available to presentations based on the superthemes.

To use them, open PPT. The themes may or may not show on your start screen. If they're there, you can click on the theme and you'll see the dialog box where you can select one of the variants. Otherwise, click CUSTOM and then the Document Themes folder. The themes should show up there. Click a theme to open that dialog where you can begin a new presentation based on the theme or one of its variants. Change variants on the Design tab if you wish.

Here's the available files. The ones I added today, some are repeats of ones that were already available. They're named like TM########[[fn=ThemeName]].thmx because I grabbed them from live "managed content" folders, and that's how they were named there. You shouldn't have to rename them.

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106 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-01-31T21:28:42+00:00

It's not there, that's my problem. The only themes available to me are: Office, Facet, Integral, Ion, Ion Board, Organic, Retrospect, Slice, and Wisp. Can I save the link you have to the Power Point Basis theme in a format I can use in Excel?

Yes. That's what I've been trying to explain to you.

Download the theme and then put it in this folder: C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes

Then open Excel, opt to create a new blank file, and go to the Page Layout tab and click the Themes button.
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Anonymous

2015-01-31T21:44:50+00:00

I think I finally figured it out by saving it to my downloads and opening that from the Excel I'm working on, and then saving that current theme. I'm hoping it will still show up the next time I need it.

Sorry, but computers are very confusing to me, and they really aren't my friends. :) I'm probably an old dog trying to learn new tricks...

But thank you for your help, I think your links above did help.
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Anonymous

2015-01-31T22:48:05+00:00
So, here goes... Here are some things I did to fix my problem perfectly.

First off, Echo S, and for future reference; I'm a dude. LOL. Also, I managed to save my themes when I was able to use the "clock-forward-a-month" trick. Here are the steps that I went through.

A couple things to remember with these steps;
- User permissions (because of limitations of public computer use; like schools)
- Hidden files from searches
With that in mind, people that don't have administrative control over the affected computer system will not be able to make the themes stay. That said, here is a list of steps a user with administrative control can do. The following are my (overly specific) steps I went through:
1. Close all office programs.
2. Open PP, Blank Presentation and then apply a theme off design tab and wait... 2 minutes max, and close PP.
3. Then change your date and time settings 2 months from now.
4. Open PP, Blank Presentation, apply a theme you do have, wait 5-10 minutes, and then close.
5. Wait 1 minute.
6. Open MS Word, Blank Document, goto design tab and check the list of themes.
  
  IF there are more than 10 themes here then things should have returned to normal.
Provided you had some luck, you can move on to the next steps to make them stay:
1. Open your C drive
2. Hit "Alt" on the keyboard to reveal the context menus; File - Edit - View - Tools.
3. Click Tools->Folder Options (Yes there are other ways to get to this dialog, this just seemed easier.)
5. Click OK to confirm these settings for searching files on you hard drive.
6. Now, while looking at the contents of your computer's C Drivedo a search for "1033" (it might take a while because it will be searching locations that were not previously indexed.)
  
  Your looking for the folder that the Themes have been "returned" to.
  
  They have a "TM03998564[[{ "Theme Name"]]{]{}{}" (or something similar)
  
  I found mine
"C:\Users\ "YOUR USER"\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\LiveContent\15\Managed\Document Themes\1033

Ready for phase three? Don't worry, this part is quick.
1. Highlight the list of themes.
2. Select Send To, Compressed (zipped) Folder. (for a backup, and it will ask for Administrative rights to add a file to that location.)
3. Now, highlight ALL OF THE THEMES, again.
4. Right click, and go to Properties.
... and I have NOT had a problem since. Although, honestly, some of these steps might not be necessary, but replicating all my steps might solve your problems as well.

Thanks for sticking trough to the end of this post,

SfireX
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Anonymous

2015-01-31T22:58:17+00:00

@SfireX: that's damned impressive, dude. ;-)
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