Themes

Recolor a whole model from a coordinated palette. A theme defines the colors of ModelXcel Pro’s named cell styles — headers, inputs, totals, flags, the empty-reference highlight — so applying one rewrites those style definitions and every cell already wearing a smart-formatting style instantly takes on the new look. Pick a built-in, or build your own in the theme manager. The choice travels with the workbook.

What a theme is

A theme is a coordinated palette — fonts, fills, and borders — for the family of named cell styles that Smart Formatting uses (headers, section titles, inputs, subtotals and totals, flags, the empty-ref highlight, and more). Applying a theme rewrites those style definitions. It does not walk your cells; instead, because every formatted cell references a named style, Excel re-renders all of them at once in the new colors.

Where to find it

ModelXcel ProFormatThemesKeytipTH

The Themes split button lives in the Format group. The dropdown is the gallery; a separate Customize… entry opens the manager.

The button face applies Default — it does not open a gallery

Despite its screentip (“Theme Gallery”) and supertip (“Browse and apply… or open the theme manager”), clicking the face of the Themes button applies the Default theme — it resets the workbook to ModelXcel’s standard colors. To browse, open the dropdown; to build or manage palettes, choose Customize…. (This is a known mismatch between the ribbon tooltip and the shipped behavior.)

The eight built-in themes

These are the palettes in the gallery. The swatch bars sample each theme’s real named-style colors — the sheet-header, section-header, and input backgrounds — so you can see the mood at a glance; the description is the ribbon’s own wording.

DefaultModelXcel Pro’s standard color theme — choose it to reset.
RubyA warm, professional ruby-red palette.
DesertEarth-toned palette inspired by desert landscapes.
ModernA clean, contemporary palette for modern workbooks.
AmethystA rich purple-accented palette for distinctive reports.
Boardroom GraphiteA graphite-led institutional palette with restrained ModelXcel blue accents.
Covenant SlateA slate-and-teal palette for infrastructure and covenant-heavy models.
OceanCool blue palette inspired by ocean depths.

Selecting a theme immediately applies it to the workbook’s style definitions. Every cell already wearing a ModelXcel style — and any you format afterwards — takes on the new colors.

What applying a theme changes

For each named ModelXcel style, applying a theme rewrites its font color, bold weight, interior fill, and borders, and it recolors the conditional-format rules used by flag cells. It does not change number formats, column widths, cell values, formulas, or which style each cell wears. These are the style families a theme repaints:

Headers & sectionsSheet titles, section dividers, and the three levels of data headers.
Inputs & referencesInput fields, table headers, and off-sheet / in-sheet reference cells.
Totals & line itemsSubtotal, total, and closing-balance rows and their border conventions.
FlagsBoolean cells and the conditional “true” highlight that fires on them.
Empty-reference highlightThe color for empty cells that are referenced by a formula.
Not touchedNumber formats, column widths, values, formulas, and cells you colored by hand.
  • Cells using a ModelXcel style recolor immediately — that’s the whole point.
  • Cells you colored by hand, or that never received a smart-formatting style, are left untouched. Themes redefine the named styles, not arbitrary cell colors.

Themes and Smart Formatting are coupled through the named styles

A theme only changes cells that wear a ModelXcel style — so the more of your model you’ve smart-formatted, the more a theme changes at once. If a theme seems to do very little, run Format Selection or Format Sheet first, then apply the theme. Conversely, a fresh format pass paints cells in whatever colors the active theme last wrote into the styles.

Where the choice is stored

The theme is remembered per workbook. Applying one records the active theme’s name in the workbook’s custom document properties (a ModelXcelThemeproperty), and the recolored style definitions are saved as part of the file — so reopening the workbook brings the same colors back. There is no app-wide or registry setting; a custom theme also stores its full palette inside the workbook.

Customize: the theme manager

Choose Customize… to open the theme manager for the active workbook. It has five tabs — Headers, Inputs, General, Flags, and Custom — editing per-style background, font, and border (and, for flags, the pattern and the conditional “true” colors), with a live preview that repaints as you change colors.

  1. Open Customize…From the Themes dropdown, choose Customize… to open the manager for the active workbook.
  2. Edit the tabsAdjust per-style background, font, and borders across the Headers, Inputs, General, Flags, and Custom tabs. The live preview repaints as you go.
  3. Apply to commitApply commits the edited colors to the workbook’s styles and the live preview. Cancel restores the theme you started with. (Apply alone does not save the palette as a named preset.)
  4. Save, export, or import on the Custom tabSave New stores the working palette under a name (built-in names are reserved; duplicates are rejected); Update Selected overwrites a custom preset; Export writes a .theme file; Import File… / Import Workbook… bring palettes in (collisions are auto-renamed); Delete removes a custom preset.

Step by step

  1. Open the workbook you want to recolor (the commands need an active workbook — otherwise “No active workbook found.”).
  2. Open the Themes dropdown and pick a preset. Every cell using a ModelXcel style recolors at once.
  3. To reset, pick Default (or click the button face).
  4. To build your own, choose Customize…, edit the tabs, and Save New on the Custom tab.

Undo & safety

  • Themes are not on the Undo Format stack, and not reliably reversible with Ctrl+Z — the colors are written to the named styles programmatically.
  • To go back, apply another theme — Default returns to standard colors, or re-apply whichever theme you were on.
  • In the Customize dialog, preview against the live workbook and click Cancel to restore the theme you started with; only Apply commits.
  • It’s saved with the workbook, so the colors persist across sessions without any undo history.

Caveats

  • Built-in names are reserved — you can’t save a custom palette as “Ruby” etc.; imported themes that collide are renamed automatically.
  • Selecting a theme in the Customize Custom-tab dropdown persists its name immediately, even before you click Apply.
  • The active theme is per-workbook. Opening a different workbook does not carry your last theme; each file remembers its own.

Where to go next

Format Selection & SheetApply the named styles a theme then recolors.Empty Referenced CellsIts highlight color comes from the active theme.Formatting SettingsNumber formats are set there, not in themes.Undo FormatNote that it does not cover theme changes.