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: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-12-19T08:08:15+00:00

    MS Tech lady here in Japan did this to solve the problem of eyedropper.

    1. Create a local account.
    2. Under this account uninstall Office 2016 using "FixIt" tool from MS site
    3. Restart the computer
    4. Clean install Office 2016
    5. Try your eyedropper. It should work.

    Please note these:

    You cannot change this local account to active MS account. If you do, you lose the eyedropper function again.

    You cannot uninstall/install Office 2016 under your existing local account. You need to create a fresh local account to start with.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-19T14:59:11+00:00

    First hope you resolve your issue. Just wanted to state that on my office 365 (32 bit) my options panel looks identical to yours just the words eyedropper but if you (I) hover over them they will show what you have shown on left (...fill, glow, recolor, etc.) in a description hover.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-20T05:17:31+00:00

    This thread really interests me as I've battling the same issue. Only difference is, my OS is 64bit and Office365 is 32bit.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-20T22:43:03+00:00

    FWIW, that's what I have here.  64-bit Win7, 32-bit Office 365, but the eyedropper works as expected.

    Are we confused yet?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments