Easy MS Word Q: Where do Theme Colors come from?

[Hatshepsut]

I should be embarrassed that I'm asking this, but what the heck.

In MS Word, when I choose colors for text by using the little icon in the formatting toolbar, it drops down a choice of colors and I just pick one. Nothing special there. However, it gives me a palette called "Theme Colors" to choose from, and they are quite nice. I use them all the time.

My question is - is there a default set of theme colors appearing automatically in everyone's MS Word, or do theme color palettes only appear if someone has created them special?

Obviously, I didn't create the theme color palette I'm using or I would not be asking this question. But it might have been installed for me by a previous employer.

[pepperlandgirl]

I have a theme color palette that is quite nice as well and I didn't create them special. My guess is that there's a default set of theme colors that are there automatically.

[Hatshepsut]

Thank you pepper! I was a bit concerned that I might have taken someone's proprietary color design and used it for another organization. Not that anyone would care (donor agencies around here tend to be fairly easy-going about sharing that sort of thing), but at least I wanted to know if I was "stealing" an agency's intellectual property.