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

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.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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...

Was this answer helpful?

8 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

91 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-19T22:59:57+00:00

    just did, same result, still broken

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-19T22:43:04+00:00

    At the risk of sounding like a MSFT Tech Support person. Can you try going to File > Options > Advanced and Disable graphics Hardware Acceleration |(two places) and restart PPT just as a quick check. This "should" at least  partly eliminate the graphics drivers.

    People (some) seem to be having the problem in 32 and 64 bit Office but as far as I can tell they all have Windows 10.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-01-19T22:25:27+00:00

    It appears to be a random problem affecting relatively few users.

    It doesn't work on my desktop with Windows Home/Office Subscription 64-bit - and that's after numerous clean Windows and Office installs. However it works on my Surface/Windows Pro/Office Subscription

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-01-19T22:22:14+00:00

    Same here... Did the update and NO CHANGE!!!!

    This is really a problem being that I'm a PowerPoint Power user...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments