Theme XML Files
Learn how you can open up the files contained within the THMX wrapper, and edit Themes for Microsoft Office.
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2007
OS: Microsoft Windows XP / Vista
August 11th 2008
February 27th 2009
If you followed my previous topic about saving a theme, you know that your saved theme has the THMX file extension. THMX actually stands for an Office Theme Document file -- but what it hides is more important in this case than what it stands for.
A THMX file -- and any of the new file formats that Office 2007 and later use are actually XML based file formats -- also they are more like a wrapper that contain many disparate and related elements, as I will show you soon.
Brian Jones, a Program Manager for Microsoft Office has put up a detailed blog that discusses the new Office file formats -- in addition to the file format itself, his blog talks about related stuff including ODF, OpenXML, etc. Here's a link to his blog.
And here's an interview with Brian Jones on the Channel9 site.
Brian
Jones - New Office file formats announced
So how is a THMX file a wrapper? This one is easy -- just follow these steps:
- Make a copy of any of the THMX files in your system -- or just save a THMX file from within PowerPoint -- look here -- and save it to somewhere easy to locate such as your Desktop (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: A THMX file placed on the Desktop
- Now ensure that your system is set
to show file extensions.
Now, right-click the file, and choose Rename -- or just press F2. Add a ".zip" without the quotes right after the name of the file -- for example if your original file name was:
indezine theme.thmx
It would be renamed to:
indezine theme.thmx.zip
Windows will warn you that renaming the file extension could render this file unusable -- but since you are just working on a test file for now, go ahead and ignore this error by clicking the Yes button that you can see in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Ignore this warning
- Now that you have renamed the THMX file with a ZIP extension, would
you believe if I told you that the original THMX file was
in fact just another ZIP file with a new extension? You may or may
not believe that -- and the easiest way to find out is by double-clicking
on the renamed ZIP file.
Depending upon whether you have a program like WinZip or similar installed or not, one of two things will happen:
If you have no extra zipping or archiving programs installed, then the new ZIP file will open just like a conventional folder that you can see in Figure 3.
Figure 3: The Theme Zip files shows up like a folder
On the other hand if you have WinZip or another compression/archiving program installed, then the ZIP file will open in that program as you can see in Figure 4.
Figure 4: The Theme ZIP file open in WinZip shows folders and files
- Either way, you can now see that the original THMX file was actually
nothing more than a collection of folders and files that comprise
the Theme -- you'll find all sorts of files within the THMX wrapper
including XML files, JPEG images, etc.
The cool part is that if you know what you are doing, you can actually edit these XML files, and even replace the JPEG files! There's no harm caused by playing with these files since you are just working with a test file.
- Once you have made any changes, go ahead and rename the ZIP extension
back to THMX -- and you should be able to use this Theme file
in your Office documents.
Remember: Even though we just renamed the THMX file ZIP in the example shown above, you should always work with a backup copy of your THMX file so that all is not lost if you make an error while editing it, or the contents within the THMX.
Compressed Folders
Do you like the compressed folders option in Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, and 7 -- some people like it, some don't but I really like this option to be turned on because I like playing with THMX zip files without actually unzipping them.
I found these links that help you enable and disable these options in Windows XP and Windows Vista:
Disable (and Enable) Windows XP's Built In ZIP Support
How do I turn off Compressed Folders (built-in support for ZIP files) in Windows Vista and XP?
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