Customizing Starter Templates

Starter templates give you a head start on building professional reports. This guide walks you through the key ways to make them your own, from applying your brand colors and swapping images, to fine-tuning fonts, headings, and chart settings.

1. Changing Colors with Themes

Microsoft Word themes control the color palette applied across your entire report template. By changing the theme or customizing its colors, you can quickly align the template with your brand.

Accessing Themes in Microsoft Word

To view the current theme applied to your template, open the file in Microsoft Word and navigate to the Design tab. Under Themes, you can see which theme is currently applied. This may be a branded theme included with the starter template or one of Word's default themes.

Updating the Colors

Method One: Changing Colors Using Default Color Schemes

The quickest way to update your template's colors is to apply one of Word's built-in color palettes.

1. Go to the Design tab.
2. Click Colors.
3. Select a built-in palette (for example, Blue-Green) to instantly update all theme colors across the template.

Method Two: Customizing Theme Colors for Precise Branding

If you need exact brand colors, you can edit the theme colors directly using HEX codes.

1. Go to the Design tab and click Colors.
2. Right-click on the color scheme you want to modify and select Edit Colors.
3. Enter your HEX codes directly or use the Eyedropper tool to sample colors from your brand assets.

Adjusting Page Background Color

You can also change the background color of your report pages to match your brand or design preferences.

1. In the Design tab, click Page Color.
2. Select a color from the palette, or choose No Color to remove any background.

2. Updating Images

Images in starter templates are stored as fills inside shapes — they act as background images within those shapes rather than standalone picture boxes. Understanding this makes it easier to swap them out.

Replacing Images in Shapes

To replace an existing image in your template:

1. Select the image (shape) you want to update.
2. Go to the Shape Format tab.
3. Click the dropdown arrow on Shape Fill.
4. Select Picture and choose your replacement image.

Updating the Cover Image

Cover images in starter templates are placed inside the page header. To access and update the cover image:

1. Double-click the top of the report page to open the Header & Footer ribbon.
2. Select the cover image and follow the same Shape Fill process described above to replace it.

Adding Your Own Images Inside Shapes (Advanced)

If you want to add a custom image into a shape, you need to size your image correctly to avoid distortion. Here is how to calculate the right dimensions:

1. Select the shape and open the Shape Format tab to note its dimensions (in centimeters).
2. Convert centimeters to pixels by multiplying each value by 100.
3. For an optimized file size, halve the pixel dimensions (reduce by 50%).

Example: A shape measuring 9.57 cm × 4.23 cm converts to 957 px × 423 px. Reducing by 50% gives you an optimized image size of approximately 479 px × 212 px.

3. Document Styling

Beyond colors and images, you can refine the overall look of your template by adjusting table borders, fonts, and heading styles.

Turn Borders Off on Tables

Starter templates use tables for layout. To hide the table borders so they do not appear in the final report:

1. Select the table.
2. Click the dropdown arrow on the grid icon (Borders button).
3. Select No Borders.

You can also access this option from the Table Design tab.

Managing Fonts

Each starter template uses Google Fonts, which are free to download from Google Fonts. A link to the fonts used in each starter template is provided in the help article for that specific template.

The starter templates are designed with styles, making it simple to update fonts across the report. Styles are predefined formatting rules for text (font type, size, spacing) ensuring consistency. Styles can be accessed in the ribbon at the top of the report or by opening the styles pane.

Updating Heading Fonts

1. Locate the Heading One style. In the starter templates, this is used for the report title.
2. Select a new font for Heading One.
3. Right-click on Heading One in the styles ribbon or select the dropdown from the styles pane.
4. Choose Update Heading One to Match Selection.
5. All headings using this base style will automatically update.

Updating the Default Font

1. Select a new font for the Normal style.
2. Press Command+D (Mac) or Control+D (Windows), or select a line of text using the default style and then click Format (in the menu) > Fonts.
3. Press the Default button.
4. Set the default font for This Document Only to ensure all unstyled text adopts the template's font.

Connect Headings to Styles

If you have added headings beyond what is in the starter template, ensure these are connected to the document Styles. This will ensure your content renders as intended.

To see styles:

1. Open the styles pane.
2. Select the desired style for the heading.
3. Choose the desired style (e.g., Heading 1, Heading 2) from the Styles pane to apply it.

4. Chart Styling & Testing

Before finalizing chart settings in your template, it is helpful to test them in the Results Builder. This lets you preview how charts will look with real data before committing changes to your Word template.

Use the Results Builder to Test Charts

Follow these steps to set up a testing environment for your charts. For a full guide to the Results Builder, see Building and Deploying Results Dashboards. 

Step One: Create a Results Page for Testing Charts

1. In the Side Panel, click Results.
2. Click Add Dashboard and give it a name.
3. Select the type (Individual or Cohort) and choose the assessment you want to test with.

Step Two: Add a Container and Tile

1. Click Add and select Container.
2. Add a Tile inside the container.
3. Click the Gear Icon on the tile and set the background color to match your report's page color.
4. Click Save.

Step Three: Add Your Merge Strings

1. Select the merge string you want to test and copy it.
2. Click the pencil icon on your tile and paste the merge string.
3. Select the merge string to load the Merge Manager.
4. Click Save to preview the chart.

Repeat these steps for as many merge strings as you need to test.

Set Popular Options in Your Charts

Once your test environment is set up, you can experiment with the following chart options. The table below shows commonly configured settings and their recommended values.

	Width and Height When you set the width or height for the chart, it will be resized to meet this criteria. The number will represent a pixel value. As a guide, charts that span the width of A4 and US Letter templates are best set to a width of no more than 650(px) and a height of no more than 800 (px). Presentation templates allow for a width of up to 900(px) and a height of 600(px).
	Rating Bands and Rating Lines By default, most charts will use the rating color in lines or bars. Displaying rating bands or rating lines will add the rating colors to the background, as a fill, or as an indicator line. The number required in the rating line will specify the thickness of the line.
	Title Rules The title rules allow you to show or hide the chart title.
	Labels You can choose to display labels for the result by showing or hiding labels in the Options. You can also set the label color so it is easier to read.
	Font You can choose from a selection of compatible fonts for your charts and specify the size of the fonts to help with readability. This will be applied to labels and the axes.
	Bar Thickness To make your bars wider, you can specify the thickness of your bars in pixels.
	Axis & Legend Depending on the chart, you can choose to show/hide elements such as the Axis and the Legend.
	Chart Colors How chart colors work depends on the type of chart you have created. In a bar chart, it will override default settings and set the bar color. This is best used in conjunction with rating bands.

This is only a small selection of the things you can do to customize your charts! To get them looking perfect, we recommend playing around in the results builder and then copying and pasting the merge string back into your PDF report.