Powerpoint Office2016 Eyedropper not working

Anonymous
2015-12-01T17:51:55+00:00

Hi

just upgraded last week to Office2016/64 on Win10 and discovered that the eyedropper in the color picker in PowerPoint no longer works. No matter where on the screen I put the cursor I get a gray color as opposed to the color immediately under the cursor as in Office365/2013/64 Powerpoint

help!

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-06-26T15:35:44+00:00

I, too, had this problem. Ran Office 365 ProPlus "Office Updates", which took PowerPoint from Build 7369.2130 up to 7766.2092, and the eyedropper issue is now non-reproducible on my machine. Seems if you can do the updates, you should be good to go.

For those who might not be able to update Office, or do and still see the issue, here's a workaround that's not too painful: The issue only seems to affect colors in the PowerPoint application; I was able to pick colors with the eyedropper from other apps just fine. (To do this, after activating the eyedropper tool, click anywhere in a PowerPoint slide, then hold and drag the mouse to anywhere else on your desktop; release the mouse button when over the desired color.) So, to pick a color that's on the slide, screenshot the slide, then use the eyedropper to pick the desired color from the screenshot.

Hope that makes sense...

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-25T16:10:02+00:00

    Same issues here. And I don't see how we could be calling this a minor issue that affects only few users! It's a pretty pivotal tool in creating professional looking presentations. Please help!

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  2. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-01-25T15:44:31+00:00

    Pardon the duplicate replies, but I wanted to make sure that anyone whols monitoring this discussion via email hears back about it.

    I've heard back from some folks at MS about this issue.  They've been able to reproduce something *similar* like so:

    Press Windows Key + Plus key to invoke the Windows Magnifier and magnify to 200%.  Press the Windows Key + Minus key to go back to 100%.  On at least some of their test systems, this causes the eyedropper to pick up the wrong color.

    On my system I don't see this, but the eyedropper DOES pick up the wrong color when the zoom level is still at 200%.

    Does that ring any bells with anyone who's having this problem?  Are you using the Win magnifier or might some other software on your system be doing something similar?

    If not, let's collect some more specifics that the MS folks have requested:

    PPT Version (Version number, X86 or X64?)

    Windows version

    Kind of graphic card

    Does it work if you turn off hardware acceleration

    (File | Options | Advanced | Disable hardware graphic acceleration)

    Resolution:  Rightclick Windows desktop, choose Resolution

    DPI:  After checking Resolution, click "Make text and other items larger or smaller" in the same dialog box,

    then click "Set custom text size (DPI)". You'll see something like "9 point Segoe UI at xx pixels per inch".  What does it say for XX?

    Is there a checkmark next to "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling"?

    Do you have a high-dpi/high resolution display?  Another possibility might be high dpi settings. Someone mentioned that it doesn't repro in Publisher so since PPT uses different dpi calculations than the rest of the office apps, and win7 has different high dpi handling than win8+, there's another one to look into.

    Was this answer helpful?

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  3. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-01-25T15:44:04+00:00

    Pardon the duplicate replies, but I wanted to make sure that anyone whols monitoring this discussion via email hears back about it.

    I've heard back from some folks at MS about this issue.  They've been able to reproduce something *similar* like so:

    Press Windows Key + Plus key to invoke the Windows Magnifier and magnify to 200%.  Press the Windows Key + Minus key to go back to 100%.  On at least some of their test systems, this causes the eyedropper to pick up the wrong color.

    On my system I don't see this, but the eyedropper DOES pick up the wrong color when the zoom level is still at 200%.

    Does that ring any bells with anyone who's having this problem?  Are you using the Win magnifier or might some other software on your system be doing something similar?

    If not, let's collect some more specifics that the MS folks have requested:

    PPT Version (Version number, X86 or X64?)

    Windows version

    Kind of graphic card

    Does it work if you turn off hardware acceleration

    (File | Options | Advanced | Disable hardware graphic acceleration)

    Resolution:  Rightclick Windows desktop, choose Resolution

    DPI:  After checking Resolution, click "Make text and other items larger or smaller" in the same dialog box,

    then click "Set custom text size (DPI)". You'll see something like "9 point Segoe UI at xx pixels per inch".  What does it say for XX?

    Is there a checkmark next to "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling"?

    Do you have a high-dpi/high resolution display?  Another possibility might be high dpi settings. Someone mentioned that it doesn't repro in Publisher so since PPT uses different dpi calculations than the rest of the office apps, and win7 has different high dpi handling than win8+, there's another one to look into.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-01-25T15:43:48+00:00

    Pardon the duplicate replies, but I wanted to make sure that anyone whols monitoring this discussion via email hears back about it.

    I've heard back from some folks at MS about this issue.  They've been able to reproduce something *similar* like so:

    Press Windows Key + Plus key to invoke the Windows Magnifier and magnify to 200%.  Press the Windows Key + Minus key to go back to 100%.  On at least some of their test systems, this causes the eyedropper to pick up the wrong color.

    On my system I don't see this, but the eyedropper DOES pick up the wrong color when the zoom level is still at 200%.

    Does that ring any bells with anyone who's having this problem?  Are you using the Win magnifier or might some other software on your system be doing something similar?

    If not, let's collect some more specifics that the MS folks have requested:

    PPT Version (Version number, X86 or X64?)

    Windows version

    Kind of graphic card

    Does it work if you turn off hardware acceleration

    (File | Options | Advanced | Disable hardware graphic acceleration)

    Resolution:  Rightclick Windows desktop, choose Resolution

    DPI:  After checking Resolution, click "Make text and other items larger or smaller" in the same dialog box,

    then click "Set custom text size (DPI)". You'll see something like "9 point Segoe UI at xx pixels per inch".  What does it say for XX?

    Is there a checkmark next to "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling"?

    Do you have a high-dpi/high resolution display?  Another possibility might be high dpi settings. Someone mentioned that it doesn't repro in Publisher so since PPT uses different dpi calculations than the rest of the office apps, and win7 has different high dpi handling than win8+, there's another one to look into.

    Was this answer helpful?

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