- Feature
- Design report themes with updated Word add-in
- Availability
- Generally available (October 2026)
- Industry focus
- Print, packaging and labelling companies
Print and packaging companies know better than anyone that a design must work on real content, not on a blank page. Their customers judge them on visual quality, so their own quotes, invoices and delivery notes need to look the part. Business Central 29.0 brings that real-content approach to designing report themes.
The industry challenge
A packaging or label printer might send customers:
- Detailed quotes with many line options and finishes
- Order confirmations with artwork references and delivery schedules
- Invoices with complex pricing and surcharges
- Pick lists and delivery notes for the warehouse and drivers
With the new composable layouts in Business Central 29.0, these documents can share a theme for colours, fonts and styling. But designing a theme on an empty page is guesswork. A theme that looks fine on a short invoice may break down on a long pick list with dense rows, or on a summary report with grouped sections and totals.
What Microsoft delivered in Business Central 29.0
According to Microsoft, the updated Word add-in includes new document sample controls for designing report themes. Microsoft has added samples that look like common document types, including:
- An invoice
- A pick list
- An outstanding orders summary
An MVP walk-through explains what each sample tests. The invoice is the densest sample, with addresses, line items and totals. The pick list is a long table of order lines, useful for checking dense rows. The outstanding orders summary is grouped by customer, useful for checking sections and totals. Each opens in a new window so you can design and preview a theme against realistic content.
Where the value shows up
| Business area | Impact for a print or packaging company |
|---|---|
| Design quality | Themes tested against realistic, demanding documents |
| Speed | Less trial and error when creating or changing themes |
| Consistency | One theme that works across invoices, pick lists and summaries |
| Brand perception | Customer documents that reflect the company's design standards |
| Reduced rework | Fewer surprises after a theme goes live |
For a business whose product is visual quality, having documents that look polished is part of the sales pitch.
A worked scenario
Consider a label printer serving food and drink brands (an illustrative example). It's adopting composable layouts so every customer document shares one branded theme.
The marketing designer creates a theme with the company's colours and fonts. Using the Word add-in, she opens the invoice sample to check how headings and totals look, then the pick list sample. On the pick list, a heavy table border she liked on the invoice makes the long rows hard to read. She lightens the border, re-checks the invoice and the outstanding orders summary, and saves the theme. When it goes live, quotes, invoices and warehouse documents all share a clean, consistent look.
Adoption considerations
- Involve a designer. Theme work benefits from someone with an eye for typography and layout.
- Test all three samples. Each one exposes different weaknesses in a theme.
- Check printed output. Some documents, like pick lists, are printed. Make sure the theme works on paper too.
- Keep accessibility in mind. Use readable font sizes and sufficient contrast.
- Version your themes. Save previous versions so you can roll back if needed.
The bottom line
Print and packaging companies are judged on how things look, including their own documents. Theme samples in the Business Central 29.0 Word add-in let teams design against realistic content, so themes work first time across very different document types. It's a practical tool that raises document quality without extra effort.
If you're planning to refresh your customer documents, it's worth exploring composable layouts and the updated Word add-in with an experienced Business Central adviser.
Sources: Microsoft roadmap 573330 · Dynamics 365 Lab: Design themes, headers and footers with the updated Word add-in