How to change the theme of Office 2013

I agree 100%.

I'm a writer. I also suffer from light sensitivity. When I'm working, I'm staring at my Word screen for many hours at a time. I typically write my books with the background-- even the main work area-- set to a very dark charcoal grey. I also made my theme a nice dark grey.

Now, when I say "dark grey" I don't mean the off-white "dark grey" that MS included in Office 2013. That isn't dark. It's not even close to dark. It still hurts my eyes to view the screen for an extended period of time, which is detrimental to my ability to make a living and remain sane.

For over two-hundred dollars, I should have the option to change the theme to ANY DARN COLOR I WANT, Microsoft.

Answer this: If I can't use a productivity suite because it causes headaches, eye-strain, and nausea, how productive do you think it will be?

Yes, I get it, MS. It's my problem**,**because I'm the one with the defective, aging eyes. I get that your design team must not have anyone over the age of 42 in it (because you sure as heck didn't consider people with presbyopia in your design) or people with varying levels of light sensitivity or color-blindness. I get that you don't give a cr♠p about usbecause you've had people complaining LOUDLY about this issue since late 2012, and you're still ignoring it and delivering your canned cut & paste responses.

So here's the deal: One of the things about being a writer is that I also do some sideline writing, and one of those gigs is reviewing software, hardware, and other things. And wouldn't you know? I have the opportunity to review MS Word 2013, too. What do you think I'm going to tell potential buyers?

I'll be fair. I'll mention the cloud features and the ease of use. I'll mention that users can download a disc image if they prefer. I'll mention that the whole thing seems to be improved and easier to use... And then I'll tell them that they should probably pass on it until Microsoft gets off their butts and allows us to have some measure of control over the theme color beyond three ridiculously-similar choices.

I'll do this because I went through forum after forum full of thousands of requests from users asking for some relief for this issue, and because Microsoft's responses have been less-than-stellar. In fact, I'd go so far as to call the responses insultingly dismissive.

And you can bet that is going in my review.

Am I threatening you? No. This is not a threat. This is your comeuppance for being arrogant and dismissive to your customers. If (or when) this lack of theme color control is addressed and corrected, I'll update my review and let people know you finally decided to consider what people need rather than what MS wants.

Until then, I'll make sure to let potential buyers know that-- if they care about their eyes-- they should save themselves hundreds of dollars by sticking with an earlier version of MS Office.

In fact, I believe that to reflect the spirit of your forums, I'll just copy & paste this message as the bulk of my review. I can do that. And you know what, MS? People will probably thank me for it.

Get off your butts and fix the color problem, Microsoft. That's how you make things right.

To "KEO11",

Thank you for the excellent summary of "User Frustration" with Office 2013.

Down at the detail software level I contacted Microsoft Support directly to see what Registry Keys control the color theme and, at my own risk, I would experiment to determine the correct color mix to get the theme into some semblence of readability.  Unfortunately, the response was that the color theme is not carried in the Registry.  It is hard coded in the source code -  BAD! BAD! BAD!.

As indicated in an earlier post I went back to Best Buy and had that sorry package unloaded from my workstation and got a refund.  Have now found an Office 2010 package to get me back on track with my activities.

At some point support for Office 2010 will cease and I hope there will be a newer package that does not cause as much aggrivation as Office 2013.

Ed Taylor

It looks like you guys need to do something quickly.  This is really bad.  At least offer some colors to replace this washed out gray.  How can a company of your size and testing capacity actually come out with something that so many people hate?

I think the dev team for Office 365/2012 stole the color scheme from DOS Shell.

.....Only DOS Shell let you change its colors.