Themes don't work in converted Word doc; PLEASE HELP

[David M]

I've converted a "compatiblility mode" document to .docx to gain formatting
options, but the themes won't work. They're not greyed out, they just have
no effect. They work well on new .docx documents. I've read conflicting
reports on this. MS says convert to gain all the new formatting tools. MS
also says that themes are permanently converted to styles in a converted
document. Whattt??? A converted document is "stuck" with the ghost of Word
2003 forever??? That can't be right?!!!!

Can anyone out there test this this or am I the only lucky guy with this
problem? Thanks!!

 

[Tony Jollans]

Themes are indirect formatting options that sit beside a document, and which
you can reference in your document when applying formatting to Styles or
direct to text. For example, when you set a font colour by clicking on the
icon in the Home tab of the Ribbon and picking one of the colours in the
main matrix, the font will be set as a reference to a Theme colour rather
than to an absolute colour, and the actual colour used will reflect changes
in the Theme.

A document in Word 97-2003 format does not have any Styles that reference
Themes, and upgrading it will not magically add them. However, part of the
Upgrade process is to change the attached Template from Normal.dot (the 2003
version) to Normal.dotm (the 2007 version) - assuming your documents are
based on Normal, of course. If you have the "Automatically update document
Styles" option set, then the Styles used in your document will be changed to
reflect those in Normal.dotm, and some of those do reference theme elements.
If you don't have this option set you will definitely not see any immediate
changes; if you do, you may see changes, depending on how your document is
actually constructed.

To set the option, go to the Developer tab on the Ribbon and click on the
Document Template button. In the dialogue, check the box.