Working with Document Themes

Working with Document Themes

This guide shows how to read and customize the color and font scheme that Word documents share with other Office applications – the document theme – using Theme, ThemeColors, and ThemeFonts in Aspose.Words FOSS for .NET. A document’s theme is the palette and font pairing that theme-aware formatting elsewhere in the object model refers to instead of hardcoding a specific color or font name.

The Theme Object

Document.Theme returns a Theme instance for the document. Theme.Colors is a ThemeColors object holding the document’s twelve theme colors; Theme.MajorFonts and Theme.MinorFonts are ThemeFonts objects holding the heading and body font sets respectively.

Theme Colors

ThemeColors exposes twelve writable Color properties: Dark1, Light1, Dark2, Light2, Accent1 through Accent6, Hyperlink, and FollowedHyperlink. Formatting objects elsewhere in the document – Border.ThemeColor, Shading.ForegroundPatternThemeColor / BackgroundPatternThemeColor, Fill.ForeThemeColor / BackThemeColor, Stroke.ForeThemeColor / BackThemeColor, and Font.ThemeColor – hold a ThemeColor enum value (Dark1, Light1, Dark2, Light2, Accent1-Accent6, Hyperlink, FollowedHyperlink, plus Text1, Text2, Background1, Background2, and None) that identifies which theme color slot applies; the actual Color value for that slot comes from the corresponding ThemeColors property on Document.Theme.Colors.

Theme Fonts

ThemeFonts exposes three writable string properties: Latin (for Latin-script characters), EastAsian, and ComplexScript – the font names used for each script when a formatting object defers to the theme. Font.ThemeFont, ThemeFontAscii, ThemeFontFarEast, ThemeFontOther, and ThemeFontBi each hold a ThemeFont enum value (Major, Minor, or None) identifying whether a given Font object defers to Theme.MajorFonts or Theme.MinorFonts for a particular script range, rather than storing an explicit font name of its own.

Tips and Best Practices

• Change a color across every theme-aware border, shading, fill, and font in one edit by updating the relevant ThemeColors property on Document.Theme.Colors, instead of walking the document to update each formatting object individually.
• Check whether a formatting object’s ThemeColor or ThemeFont property is None before assuming it defers to the theme – None means it carries its own explicit Color or font name instead.
• Theme.MajorFonts typically supplies heading fonts and Theme.MinorFonts body fonts, matching Word’s own theme font picker.

Common Issues

FAQ

How do I read a document’s theme colors?

Read Document.Theme.Colors, a ThemeColors object with Color properties for each of the twelve theme color slots – Dark1, Light1, Dark2, Light2, Accent1-Accent6, Hyperlink, and FollowedHyperlink.

How do I change the document’s accent color everywhere it’s used?

Set Document.Theme.Colors.Accent1 (or whichever accent slot) to a new Color; every formatting object whose ThemeColor property references that slot picks up the change.

What’s the difference between ThemeColors and ThemeColor?

ThemeColors (on Document.Theme.Colors) is the object holding the twelve actual Color values for the document. ThemeColor is the enum used elsewhere (Border, Shading, Fill, Stroke, Font) to reference one of those slots by name instead of storing a color directly.

How do I set which theme font a Font object uses?

Set Font.ThemeFont (or the script-specific ThemeFontAscii / ThemeFontFarEast / ThemeFontOther / ThemeFontBi) to ThemeFont.Major or ThemeFont.Minor; the actual font name then comes from Document.Theme.MajorFonts or MinorFonts.

API Reference Summary

See Also

• Aspose.Words — Enterprise Documentation