# Custom Themes in Tableau 2025.1 - Step-by-Step Guide

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2025-03-20
- **Format:** Video · 5 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (dashboards, formatting)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/custom-themes-in-tableau-20251---step-by-step-guide
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyZp9R_SJJQ

I walk through the new custom themes feature in Tableau 2025.1, showing how to import and export theme files using JSON. I demonstrate applying a custom theme across an entire workbook, reverting to the default, and using a third-party theme generator to create your own.

## Key takeaways

- Custom themes in Tableau 2025.1 are imported and exported via JSON files through Format > Import/Export Custom Themes
- Applying a theme affects every tab in the workbook, but you need to refresh all thumbnails to see the change reflected in previews
- You can export a theme from an existing styled workbook to reuse your organisation's styling template
- This is a version-one feature focused mainly on fonts and some colour elements, with broader styling (including chart themes) expected in later releases
- Because themes are JSON, third-party tools like The Data Viz's custom theme generator let you build and edit themes visually, or you can hand-edit the JSON like CSS

## Chapters

- 0:05 Importing a custom theme
- 1:20 Exporting themes and reverting to default
- 2:16 What theme elements are supported
- 3:42 Third-party theme generators and editing JSON

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/custom-themes-in-tableau-20251---step-by-step-guide

---
just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena