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
    2016-03-03T23:53:32+00:00

    I am another user with the same problem.  I use eyedropper all of the time - it is key to making nice presentations. Please help.  Mine consistently just shows 25% gray. Powerpoint 2016 64bit

    Jim

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-02-25T21:29:47+00:00

    Hi, 

    here is another user with the same problem - just get 75% grey as the selection. Magnifier and Quick repair do not sort it out. Very frustrating as was one of the most useful additions to functionality in PPT13/16

    This has been an issue on this forum since December at least, and would be great if MS could sort out a solution. 

    Cheers

    Simon

    W10 64 bit, running 32 bit Office

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  3. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-02-21T16:24:40+00:00

    I'm not suggesting that you have, or that the problem *on your system* has anything to do with the magnifier.  Just that the magnifier *is* a known and proven cause of the problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-20T21:36:01+00:00

    Rick573,

    It's the same for me. The eyedropper does work in Publisher, but not in PowerPoint, and I tried the same magnifier steps to no avail.

    -Chris

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