Windows – Office Background Color with Dark Theme

microsoft-officemicrosoft-office-2010windows 7

I have recently changed to a dark theme in Windows 7.

This mostly works nicely, but the problem is the page backgrounds in Word and Excel (2010) become dark, too. I don't want that, because I want what I see on the screen to correspond to how a printed page will look. Also, the dark page background doesn't work well with text colors, etc., in existing documents.

Is there anyway to make Word and Excel display a white page background by default, no matter the system settings?

Changing the normal template was recommended for Word, but it doesn't seem to work. Also, that would only work for new documents I created, anyway.

Thanks for your help.

Update: I want to keep the Windows window color dark. Otherwise, things such as Explorer have a white background, too, which kind of ruins a dark theme. I just don't want this to apply to Office documents. It seems like a reasonable request to want to distinguish between the two: Office documents are not part of the Windows user interface; they are documents.

Best Answer

Using a high contrast theme will require you to adjust the properties manually.

  1. Go to Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Personalization
  2. At the bottom of the window click Window Color
  3. In the Item: drop-down choose Window
  4. To the right choose what color you want under Color 1:
  5. Click Apply, then OK

enter image description here
Note: This image is for reference only. Yours will look different.

Now when you open Word or Excel the background should be the color you chose.

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