SlydeTutorialsCreating a Theme
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Tutorial 02 · 3 min read

Creating a Theme

A theme is a master deck: a look — type, palette, backgrounds, canvas — plus a repository of real layouts every deck built on it draws from. Here is how to start one and shape it.

A theme is a master deck

One palette edit repaints every layout — the look lives in the theme, not the slides.

A theme is a deck that other decks are made from. Its slides are your layouts; its styles are your look. A layout is not a mockup — it is a slide, built in the same editor with the same elements. If you can build a slide, you can build a theme.

THEME — A MASTER DECKTHE LOOKAaType stylesPaletteBackgroundsCanvas 16:9 — or customLAYOUT REPOSITORY — IN SECTIONSOPENERSDATASTORIESCLOSERSA new deck snapshots the look, draws on the layouts
One master deck, two halves: the look, and the layout repository in sections.

The four doors

The new-theme dialog offers four ways in:

  1. Start from scratch — a blank kit, one empty layout. Build the templates yourself.
  2. Design with AI — describe subject, audience and feeling; the ✦ designer invents a look and builds every slide, fully editable.
  3. Build with HTML — design the deck in Claude, then import the .html. Slides arrive 1:1, theme included.
  4. Import a theme — bring a PDF or PowerPoint export; every page becomes a layout.
The New theme dialog with four cards: Start from scratch, Design with AI, Build with HTML, Import a theme
Four starts, one destination: the theme editor.

Set the look

  1. Set type styles: per-category sizing for the fixed categories — titles, headlines, body, captions — plus your own named styles for recurring specials like the big stat or the mono eyebrow.
  2. Set the palette. Swatches are live references — elements hold “accent,” not a hex — so retuning a swatch retunes every slide. A late rebrand is one edit, not forty slides.
  3. Build the backgrounds library — flat grounds, gradients, image plates — that slides pick from.
  4. Set the canvas size: widescreen by default, or custom — A4, square — inherited by every deck on the theme.
The theme editor with the Theme panel open on Type Styles — Display, Header, Body and a named Eyebrow style — with Palette, Backgrounds and Canvas tabs beside it
The Theme panel: the fixed categories plus your named styles — Palette, Backgrounds and Canvas one tab away.

Organize layouts into sections

  1. Group your layouts into sections — Openers, Content, Data, Closers, whatever your deck grammar is.
  2. Name and order them the way your team thinks mid-deck (“I need a data slide”).

Sections become the tabs of every template picker your team sees — your categories, your order. An unsectioned theme makes every insert a scroll through everything.

The Add a slide picker showing every layout of the theme as a preview tile, plus a blank slide
Add a slide: every layout in the theme is a tile — sections, once you define them, become this picker’s categories.

Prioritize for auto-generate

  1. Open a layout’s menu in the theme and choose Prioritize for auto-generate.
  2. Prioritize the layouts that show the system at its best; once any are prioritized, automatic builds draw from that set.

Keep the archive in the theme, prioritize the canon — auto-generated decks come out looking like your best work, not a tour of your history.

A layout’s menu in the theme editor: Assign/request, Comment on slide, Rename, Redraft slide, Template type, Prioritize for auto-generate, Hide slide and more
A layout’s menu in the theme: Prioritize for auto-generate, Redraft, template type — and assignment and comments on the slide itself.

Duplicate a theme to another workspace

Duplicate a theme into another workspace to move a look — the whole master deck travels, layouts and all. The copy is independent from the moment it lands; changes flow in neither direction, so iterate in the client’s workspace without touching the original.