Share via

Office for Mac - Saving Custom Color Theme Not Possible

DavidLowis-6050 10 Reputation points
2026-01-11T19:26:31.45+00:00

Hello,
I am using Microsoft 365 for Mac (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) and I am unable to create or save a custom theme colour scheme.

When I go to the option to customise theme colours (e.g. Design/Theme Colours – Create/Customise Colours), the dialogue appears and I can select a new colour for a theme slot (for example, “Accent 1”). However, after choosing the colour, I cannot confirm or save the change – there is no “Save”/“OK” button or similar. Keyboard shortcuts (Cmd+S) and pressing Enter do not apply the change either. The only option is to close the dialogue, and the theme colours remain unchanged.

This issue occurs consistently across Word, PowerPoint and Excel, which prevents me from setting any custom colour scheme.

Could you please advise on how to resolve this if it is user error (or whether this is a known issue with the current Mac version of Microsoft 365)?

Thanks!

Screenshot 2026-01-11 at 20.17.06

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | MacOS

Locked Question. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

4 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. John Korchok 231.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-01-12T16:52:46.9733333+00:00

    The round color swatches are the normal appearance in PowerPoint 2024 for Mac and PowerPoint 365 for Mac.

    The color picker does not require a Save or OK button. Changing a color value in the picker interactively updates the color swatch in the Create Theme Colors dialog.

    Your installation appears to be working normally.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  2. John Korchok 231.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-01-11T19:57:33.7033333+00:00

    In Office for Mac, you can only create a custom color theme in PowerPoint.

    I'm afraid I don't understand your issue in paragraph 2 about not having a Save button. The Save button is visible in your screen shot. Do you mean that the Save button does not respond?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  3. Viktor 0 Reputation points
    2026-02-08T11:15:59.7033333+00:00

    I am on Version 16.105.2 (26012530), macOS 15.7.3 and it does not work as well

  4. Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 435K Reputation points
    2026-01-12T04:44:30.5366667+00:00

    Please provide the present Version Numbers of both Mac Office & the release of macOS you're using.

    Note the difference between the round color swatches in your Create Theme Colors dialog & the square ones in what I have:

    User's image

    When I select a color in the Color Picker the corresponding swatch automatically changes.

    I'm running Office 16.105 on Sequoia (15.7.3).