MS Office 2013 themes

A generous friend gave me a copy of Office Pro 2013. After I got it installed though I'm feeling like I wasted my time. I had been using Office 2003 - in particular Outlook 2003 for calendaring - and Outlook 2013 is extremely low contrast, blindingly white. I've changed the theme to Dark Grey which barely makes a difference. Does anyone know if MS plans to offer more color schemes or if there are any third party solutions? If not I will probably remove 2013 and go back to 2003.

See if this helps,
I need to change my color theme. - Microsoft Community

You can download more themes from Microsoft store: Templates - Presentations, Spreadsheets, Documents, Calendars & More - Office.com

ThrashZone said:

See if this helps,
I need to change my color theme. - Microsoft Community

Thanks for this. I actually was able to install additional themes but unfortunately they don't change UI. Apparently there is no solution/alternative at the moment for the white/grey UI of MSO 2013.

many people are saying that office 2013 is very bright. I have it but on my monitor I do not see it because i do not have my monitor on the brightest, but i went to another clients computer who has the same complaint and all we did was lower the brightness in the monitor when he uses office. I know this is a pain but it works

robinb9 said:

many people are saying that office 2013 is very bright. I have it but on my monitor I do not see it because i do not have my monitor on the brightest, but i went to another clients computer who has the same complaint and all we did was lower the brightness in the monitor when he uses office. I know this is a pain but it works

Yes, that's worth considering, but it may not solve the problem. For one thing the monitor brightness is at a good setting for everything else I do. Also, the problem with Office 2013 apps is not just the "whiteness" but low contrast. The "dark grey" theme adds barely enough contrast to make it tolerable - dimming the monitor may make it worse. Fortunately I don't need to use it much so I may be able to get by. But if necessary I'll remove it and go back to Office 2003. It's pretty sad that 10 year old software actually has better functionality.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
Office 2010 --Much better -- you can also set themes and backgrounds different from that hideous White colour in Office 2013.

For instance I prefer something like this (EXCEL 2010) 1st screenshot - compared with EXCEL 2013 second screenshot

Cheers
jimbo

Yep, that's exactly my problem. I'd happily downgrade to Office 2010, but it isn't possible as far as I know.

I cannot understand why you do not like the white color, I have it on 3 machines and it does not bother my eyes nor my husbands but we are over 50 yrs of age. Maybe at that age your eyes change so one does see differently. It is interesting cause my son is 40 and he agrees with you guys

robinb9 said:

I cannot understand why you do not like the white color, I have it on 3 machines and it does not bother my eyes nor my husbands but we are over 50 yrs of age. Maybe at that age your eyes change so one does see differently. It is interesting cause my son is 40 and he agrees with you guys

You are among the fortunate ones. I don't know if there is a correlation with age, but if you google the issue you will see that a great many people are having a problem with the brightness and low contrast of the 2013 UI.