If a company is associated with certain colors, or you want to create a distinctive color theme for your presentation, follow these next steps.

1. After opening a PowerPoint presentation, click on the Design tab, and navigate to the Variants group.
2. Click the down arrow in the corner of the variant scrollbar and a new dropdown menu appears.
3. Select the Colors option, and another the color bar menu opens to the right.
4. Scroll to the very bottom of the list and select the Customize Colors option.
   
5. A Create New Theme Colors dialog box opens. On the left are the various areas and their associated colors. On the right side is a visual layout sample of the colors associated with the different areas. Any of the areas can be changed to specific colors to match the custom theme.
6. Once new colors are selected, in the Name field, type in the name of your new custom color theme and click the Save button.
   • If after working on the colors for while you wish to start over, click the Reset button on the bottom left and all the area colors return to the original starting colors.
7. Now return to the Variants group, select the down arrow, colors, and look at the top of the color menu. The newly created custom color theme is at the top. This is now saved and can be used over and over with new presentations.
8. If you are using Office 365, this new custom color scheme created in PowerPoint can be used throughout Microsoft 365 products (e.g. Word, Excel, etc.).