How to change the theme of Office 2013

I'm replying to my own post because since posting my comment here, I returned my new Dell computer because of a mark on the touch screen that wouldn't come off. I got a similar Toshiba to replace it. When I installed Office Home & Student 2013 last night (3/18/13), EXACTLY the same way I had on the Dell on 2/24/13, it installed differently. There is now something called Office Backgrounds, which was not available on 2/24/13. You can have all sorts of things up in the title bar now, such as creatures under the sea, stars, stripes, food, and other "doodles". Although I don't use them, it inherently made that part of the screen and the edges darker. Even though there are still only the three color themes, the screen is much easier to see, especially on a high-glare surface like a touch screen.

So, either Office installs differently on different manufacturer's computers, or maybe they listened to us? It's not as much as we want, but at least it's a little better.

BTW, Office Backgrounds can be found by clicking on the main screen's menu line:  File, Options, General.

I just installed 2013 yesterday and the first thing I wondered was how can I change the theme.  White is too bright and the grays are depressing.  How difficult is color?  Everything else seems to be good so far - but I keep wanting to have a colored screen.  Microsoft we are only the people who take time to complain.  I would get that there are millions more like us who just wouldn't bother because Microsoft won't do anything about it anyway.  Step up and get us all color and contrast!

I must say that I am very disappointed with the new themes in Office 2013. Like most of you I work in the IT department and have a say in what we deploy to our 5k computers and I will be strongly suggesting we not upgrade to office 2013 until we have better options for the colors. I have been using it for a week and have been getting headaches from looking at the dark gray interface for 8 hrs a day (and the white and light gray are even worse). I love the product with all the new features and how well it meshes with Windows 8 but please give us some color options.

Thank you for the feedback on Office’s new look. We are actively collecting, sorting and reading through feedback on Office 2013’s design and User Experience. As the audience for Office 2013 grows, we are being mindful of patterns and pain points that emerge from user feedback. While we do not have any additional Themes planned at this time, it is an issue we are watching very closely.

Jennie, we appreciate that Microsoft is looking at people's reactions to this. That's very good.

In the meantime, there seem to be quite a few of us who think the new design scheme for the Office suite is not good. Minimalism is great; in fact Google and their suite of products does it very well. But this is not minimalist; rather, it looks unfinished, incomplete. Moreover, the cleanness of a UI is a great idea--but the execution here is just horrible. In fact, I didn't know that I really cared about UI quite this much until I put Office 2013 on my computer. Office 2010--and all the versions before that--looked a million times better. What's more, each successive version was better, at least in my opinion. (Except for color issues in that UI--is it really that hard to add theme/color options?) With 2013, while I love the program and upgraded features, this UI is absolutely awful.

I hope you all make a change, and soon. Until then, I don't think I'll continue to use Office 2013.