Office 2007: How To Change the Color Scheme
Contributed by Rob Rogers 
Tagged: Microsoft Office You can change the color scheme of the Microsoft Office 2007 applications so that they better match your existing desktop theme. To do this, follow this tech recipe:
1. Open up one of the Office applications (if you are going to use Outlook, then you will need to access a new message window).
2. Click on the big round Office Button in the upper left corner.
3. In the lower right corner, click the Options button.
4. In the left pane, select Popular.
5. In the right pane, use the Color scheme dropdown to select the desired scheme (blue, silver, or black).
6. Click OK.
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Shaw said on October 9, 2008
Thanks, just what I was looking for!
Christina Hampton said on October 22, 2008
I want the ability to change these colors as I see fit. The color schemes you have hurt my eyes terribly. Black is acceptable, but just barely.
thank you.
Christina Hampton said on October 22, 2008
Sorry, changed windows without realizing it, I thought I was on the Microsoft page.
The information you have was what I was looking for, but Microsoft fell short of what I wanted.
stephan helgesen said on October 27, 2008
How do you do it if you are running Outlook as a standalone product (and there is no ‘Office’ button?
Regards,
Stephan Helgesen
Rob Rogers said on October 27, 2008
Create a new email message. When the New Message window appears, you will have an Office button to select.
saad said on October 27, 2008
thank you very very much for your tip.
Bomarc said on November 11, 2008
This is not useful. Office is using non-standard colors, and one can NOT tell the difference between active and non active windows. How do I get the colors to match the “Windows” standard that I’ve selected? (65 million colors, and you can choose THREE)
midiman said on November 18, 2008
You mean Outlook is not useful. The post is very useful.
If anyone knows a way to customize/add to the increbibly diverse choice of three colors, that would be great.
Marie said on December 5, 2008
Got as far as clicking on the “Editor” Options button, Popular is a choice in the left hand pane but is grayed out. The only button available is “Customize.” I hate Microsoft, what was wrong with the old Outlook scheme?
Hasan Awae said on April 2, 2009
Is there any other color more then (blue, silver, or black)?
ecc said on May 28, 2009
Bomarc,
did you ever get an answer to your question? I’d also like to have Office 2007 use the standard Windows XP colors like every other program does. In addition to not being able to (easily) tell the difference in active and inactive windows, their titles and borders look very similar to the background (i.e., when a spreadsheet is not maximized in Excel).
TonyS said on June 25, 2009
I’m with Christina Hampton. Also, In addition to the inability to change the contrast between an active and inactive window, the Vista style borders with the sheen, reflective look, obscures the borders of the office windows entirely. I constantly click what I think is the border of the office window I want, only to bring forward the window behind it.
Paul said on June 25, 2009
Thank you! The light blue was somehow disturbing.
Casper said on July 6, 2009
Thanks..:)
Jukka said on September 29, 2009
The scheme of the “active” window should have more contrast to other windows. In my eyes “black” is the easiest to use, even though it’s not nice…
Ettbrowneyes said on July 29, 2010
Thanks so much!!
Nancyp said on July 31, 2010
whoop-dee-doo… microsoft gives us THREE whole choices for color!!! and they all are equally pathetic in that all the windows (active or INactive) look so similar it’s difficult to tell which IS the active one.
J R Maber said on August 16, 2010
Can be done – here are instructions for Office 2007 on Windows XP. May differ on other versions of windows.
-> Control panel
-> accessibility options
-> display tab
-> switch on high contrast (don’t worry – end result need not be high contrast)
-> settings button
-> choose colour scheme that most closely resembles what you want (can tweak later)
-> apply and exit back to control panel
-> Display
-> Appearance tab
-> Advanced button
-> Fine tune colours and apply
Office 2007 will honour these colour settings because they have been set up using accessibility options. Even though you used the ‘high contrast’ check box to make this happen you can just as easily set low contrast colour schemes and these will be honoured too. The only drawback – windows will display in old fashioned style without 3d shading and lighting effects.
UdovdM said on August 19, 2010
I found that option as well.
But only the Office windows don’t seem to have is the shaded 3D edges. All other windows have the old button look with shaded right and bottom sides.
A major downside is that in high contrast mode the background in IE and Firefox is all white. Is there a way to keep the background colours and images from the webpages?
Ndaoud said on August 30, 2010
can we control page color through gp
Rbsmith2000 said on March 11, 2011
You are the best!
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