How can I change my Outlook.com inbox font color into black?

Anonymous
2013-03-19T12:11:59+00:00

Original post: Just had my old Hotmail transformed to the new Outlook. Who are the (removed by Moderator) who decided that light grey type is easier to read than black? Is there any way to change that color on my screen?

These 60-year-old eyes find it hard to read the light grey type that y'all apparently think makes you look cool. Utility is more important to to me  than "cool". Can I change it to black on my screen?

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Settings

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2014-09-02T14:01:29+00:00

... who decided that light grey type is easier to read than black? Is there any way to change that color on my screen?

This is an old question which was never satisfactorily answered despite the markings on some of the posts. It still attracts attention, possibly because it's been marked as answered, so here's a different response:

This sort of problem is best tackled by making style adjustments in the browser, to override the styles dictated by the web page's designers. I only ever use Internet Explorer, and this is how I make the text in Outlook.com's message list both bigger and blacker without affecting anything else much.

1.   Copy the text in this box and paste it into a new Notepad document:

.t_lnk a, .t_lnk a:link, .t_elnk, .t_qtc,.t_qtc:hover,.t_qtc:visited,.mlRd .t_estc, .t_qtci, .mlUnsel .t_cag.nc:hover 

{font-size: 14px !important; color:#000 !important;}

.mlUnrd.t_sel div, .mlRd.t_sel div, .mlUnrd.t_sel span, .mlRd.t_sel span, .mlUnrd.t_sel a, .mlUnrd.t_sel .Fm a, .mlRd.t_sel a, .mlUnrd.t_sel .DtB a, .mlRd.t_sel .DtB a

{color: #FFF !important}

2.   Click File > Save As. In the Save as type box, select All files (*.*), then in the File name box type

      ol-black.css

3.   Select a suitable place to save the file, e.g. in your Documents folder.  

4.   Open Internet Explorer and go to your inbox at http://mail.live.com

      The message list will probably look something like this:

5.   Click the Internet Explorer settings cog in the top right-hand corner of the window

      (not the identical outlook.com one below it). Select Internet options.

6.   Click the Accessibility button on the General tab.

7.   Select Format documents using my style sheet and click Browse.

8.   Navigate to the file you saved earlier, select it and click Open.

9.   Click OK twice. With any luck, your message list will now look something like this:

The CSS file can be fine-tuned if necessary. Does this help any of you?

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Anonymous
2013-04-08T05:05:58+00:00

Hi Everyone,

I can see how important it is to all of you to be able to change the font settings in the new interface. Your level of dissatisfaction of not being able to change the font settings of your Outlook.com emails is completely justified. We appreciate your time in sharing your thoughts and opinions while we are working to fine tune your Outlook.com experience.

If you want this feature to be available to the product, please send us a feature request on this link.

If you need additional assistacnce, please let us know.

Thank you,

Alix Xedjhidee

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-10-22T15:50:55+00:00

    25 years ago, I was a member of an IT team for a large corporation capturing production and CMMS data.  We used Access 1.0 beta and Excel, and helped debug and apply fixes to Microsoft free of charge for 3 years.  Now, all I want to do is read.  It would take less than a day to make these font changes, test, and roll out an update, but your developers may be secretly working for Google or Yahoo.  Have you become a subsidiary of the USPS?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-22T13:25:45+00:00

    Microsoft, I still think you're missing the big picture.  Yes, people need to be able to change the size as well as the color of the text.  This is because, as humans grow older, our eyes demand greater contrast in text.  It is simple biology.  To force older people to attempt to read greyed text is blatant age discrimination on Microsoft's part.  Don't you have any older web developers?  If not, why not?  You should have web developers that are at least over the age of 65.  And they need to be honest ones who are not afraid to speak up!  I could certainly serve as a consultant for you if the salary was acceptable!

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-22T02:57:35+00:00

    I can see how important it is to all of you to be able to change the font settings in the new interface. Your level of dissatisfaction of not being able to change the font settings of your Outlook.com emails is completely justified. We appreciate your time in sharing your thoughts and opinions while we are working to fine tune your Outlook.com experience.

    This was one of the MS responses in April 2013. What a joke! I stopped using Outlook around about this time and I am only reminded about this stupid issue because of a subscription to the original thread.

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