Using themes in visio

"It appears that the stencils themselves only have basic color theming functionality unless they're designed to support the ""interface"". i.e. This page talks about the details.

I agree about the clunkiness of it - I would guess it's a feature that can/should grow in usefulness over time. For example, I'd love it if the color blending would happen at the layer level (e.g. a box within a box gets a different color than its layer below).

But you can see the potential if you create a Work Flow Diagram - those shapes support the advanced theme coloring."