Changing the Color Theme in Office 2013 including Outlook 2013 and Word/Excel was not possible until the final RTM release which is not available on Technet and Volume Licenses sites at Microsoft. This has been a very sore subject with the Office 2013 Preview as the default White theme has been quite painful on the eyes. So changing the colors was actually the first thing I checked on after installing the RTM and I’m excited to announce it IS possible and here’s how to do it.
Again – This only works with Office 2013 RTM “Release to Manufacturer”. You cannot change the theme colors in the Preview.
Launch Outlook 2013 (or Word or Excel…) and Click File, Options
On the General Tab, click the down arrow under Office Theme to choose a new Office Color. White, Light Gray and Dark Gray are the available options.
Once you choose a new Color Theme, it will take affect in all Office apps including Outlook 2013, Word 2013, Excel 2013 etc… Here’s a few screenshots of the new look.
Click to enlarge:
Personally, my favorite is the Light Gray however I was also getting quite used to the White Color Theme also. Microsoft is obviously trying to maintain a specific look here being that the colors are fairly limited vs. Office 2010.
Thank goodness, the default white is terrible! The light grey is much better, but I prefer the dark grey myself.
Agreed. Funny they left this out of the preview. Glad it’s back.
Btw — dark gray??? Yuck!!!
Where do you get the RTM? I have Preview
Thanks, you made my day
Theme choices are a complete joke, white, grey, dark grey. Really? Horrible. Im using it in dark grey mode mainly because I must, my clients will be using this soon so I have to know the in’s and out’s but i really hope Msoft gives more color options, this is awful…
Wow! Three options (which is still a 200% improvement over the original)is pretty disappointing. If we were still using Comodore 64′s this would be acceptable. LIke Tommy, I’m going to have to roll this out to my client base. I wish Microsoft would simply realize, when they make these kinds of changes, the IT Support staffs get blamed for their decisions.
Kudos to the GroovyPost team for this fix.
White, Grey Dark Grey, its still to white
Include the option for any color the customer can use for Office themes.
Yeah this colour thing is total rubbish. As too is the whole flat 2 dimensional retro monocolour look of both office 2013 and windows 8. I know I said goodbye to this crap back in the mid nineties when windows 3.1.1 disappeared. Did not like it then and don’t like it now. And to put up this rubbish AND remove all customising choices just sucks. No, white, light and dark grey are not choices, even when it is only a small part of the screen area.
Wow. I agree. Three options. At least it’s better than the black/white color choices for cars in the olden days. Come on, I am very visually oriented and I like soothing backgrounds. I want the colors options back.
BTW, thanks for posting the path to make the change. You are not the one making the color choices so my distain is not for you
I found another post which takes you through FILE –> Office Account…. either works.
Wow, they gave us the option of white, mostly white and slightly less white.
Nevertheless, thanks for posting.
Exactly! What more could the users want?
In addition to my previous comment I am also colourblind (red/green they say) and I find the all-white look very straining on the eyes. Something Microsoft in their wisdom have given zero thought about. Personally I have found a light green (to me anyway) causes less strain and is much easier to look at for long periods.
Since I am also seriously avoiding that other piece of crap software they call Windows 8 does anyone know if this has also become a Windows issue too?
Windows 8 actually gives you more options so no, however the new “color” standards are set throughout Office 2013 including LYNC.
They need to give back the options from 2010 I think.
I’m really curious how Msoft can make such poor choices – shades of white? The color theme for Office 2010 were real good. This is just flat and totally unattractive. So bad that I’ll go back to Office 2010.
Thank you for your comments here. The dark grey works better, but still crummy.
What’s the problem, they’ve done away with 3d, removed colours, and made a new UI that doesn’t have windows, removed visible borders from popup windows, made text dark white on white, taken away configuration options, removed menus, forced us to use the shell to do anything useful.
So finally we don’t have to worry about anti-trust as any version of any OS is going to be competitive by comparison. My 16yo daughter blew away Windows 8 and loaded Ubuntu last weekend.
Crazy…
Confucious says: “Mother nature gives is the wind and changing of the seasons which acts to cleanse the trees and foliage of the year, removing the colors of fall, and allowing the plants and animals to sleep for the winter. In the spring, the plants regain their color and the animals awake with a new”
Roughly translated: “This new version blows, the lack of color is mind-numbingly boring, severely reduces my productivity, and… I’m going back to 2010!”