Has anyone noticed that Themes are now missing?

Anonymous
2014-11-18T20:50:13+00:00

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.

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2015-06-18T16:36:57+00:00

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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  1. Anonymous
    2014-12-11T04:18:16+00:00

    I don't have Wood Type (and it doesn't return on a search either) but I do have Banded. Windows 8 (not 8.1) Office 2013 Pro. An update came through this morning but I don't know if that had any effect as I don't use the templates so never pay them any attention...

    Lucy

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-12-12T15:14:38+00:00

    From today ALL the templates are back here.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-12-13T21:04:54+00:00

    I noticed similar when I was recording PowerPoint 2013 Live Lessons when 2013 first came out. It's maddening. I had 3 different installations, each showing a different set of templates. I checked with the other PowerPoint MVPs, and we all had different templates showing. So frustrating.

    Also frustrating because my custom theme is showing up 5th in the thumbnails. I used to see Blank Presentation then my custom template then all the rest. Now I see Blank Presentaiton, Basis, View, Welcome to PowerPoint, and then my custom theme. Then Ion, Organic, Slice, Integral, Retrospect, Ion Boardroom and Facet.

    But it's by design. MSFT controls the templates that show on the splash screen. And this apparently always changes. Grrr.

    Interesting, though. I think that this particular set of templates are those which shipped with Office, while (I think) I downloaded Basis and View.

    The other interesting thing is that I just switched accounts from a corporate account to a personal one. I was a vendor for a corporation, and that subscription expired. I wonder if that affected what displays as well. Hm.

    http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/learn/themes/01-evolution.html has info on where the themes are installed. Do you see any of the "missing" themes there?

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-01-06T16:32:22+00:00

    I only have 9 Design Themes remaining in PowerPoint 2013 since last month.

    I work in a managed environment where user stations cannot redownload templates, yet the templates have disappeared on almost every workstation within the last month.  It is very difficult to test students when stations are displaying only a few of the design themes.

    I noticed the above post by PukalaniUser applies to us as well:

    "If you are referring to the Design templates (also known as themes) we have discovered they have been removed after a Windows 8.1 update. Originally there were 27 themes, now there are only 9. This has happened in Word, PowerPoint and Excel."

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