Changing to a theme with color in Office 2013?

Please...PLEASE...someone tell me there is a way to change the Office 2013 RTM themes beyond just a grey-scale look. All I can see is "White", "Light Grey", and "Dark Grey"...which is equivalent to "Stormtrooper White", Stormtrooper Light Grey", and "Stormtrooper Dark Grey". Did the Adams Family design the Office 2013...because everything looks like a flat-styled death theme compared to Office 2010. I'm quite literally getting eye-strain from it. I can see a headache coming on if I try to use this all day.

Is there some option I'm missing, some third-party add-on, a registry tweak...or ANYTHING that will add a blue, tan, or any other splash of real color to Office 2013? Also, is there some way to add some depth to the slider bars? Everything looks so flat....and dead. I'm working with these tools all day long...and it's like I'm living in a Twilight Zone episode. I feel depressed after using Office 2013.

October 28th, 2012 2:07am

Unfortunately, I don't think so. It is AWFUL!! I've been using it less than 2 days - and was very tempted to go back to 2010, but I like a couple of the features - especially in PowerPoint.

What were they thinking?

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October 28th, 2012 5:27am

You start Windows 8...and see all the crazy colors. Wow...there are colors EVERYWHERE....it's like Teletubbies land. Then, you launch the Excel 2013 app...and all the life is instantly sucked right out of Windows 8. You can feel it in your bones. The Office apps are a barren, Boot Hill-esque, cold wasteland....with grey and white tumbleweeds and gravestones. Then, you go back into Metro...and WHAM...it's the Skittles rainbow monster voraciously attacking everything in sight. Nom nom nom nom. Big blocks of color coming at you....it's crazy like...wow man...what a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas trip crazy! You are flying sky high with the bats and stingrays. Life is groovy. You then launch Outlook 2013 and WHAM...there you are...slammed down to the ground...back in Frankenweenie land ready to raise some dead animals or something.

How hard would it be to add a color option to Office 2013? Would it literally...take all of 10 minutes to code? Is there a color option coming soon? Like...in the next few weeks soon? If this is Microsoft's new schtick...I'll even accept a "Dripping Blood Red" or "Burnt Corpse Greenish Brown"  theme option at this point....I'm so color depraved. Why isn't there any color in the number one Microsoft cash cow? Did vampires develop it? Did Trent Reznor manage the project? Is Office 2013 an homage to Boris Karloff? What's up?

Actually...I don't care what's up...I just want to know how to fix it. Really, there is no way to fix it? Really?

October 28th, 2012 6:17am

Hi,

The theme of Office Professional Plus 2013 is by design, and check to see whether change the color of window borders taskbar can do any help.

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October 29th, 2012 11:09am

I think you meant "By poor design."  I think I'm going back to Office 2010 until it's fixed.  Their "design" is causing a headache and sore eyes.
October 29th, 2012 2:00pm

Hi,

The theme of Office Professional Plus 2013 is by design, and check to see whether change the color of window borders taskbar can do any help.

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October 29th, 2012 4:51pm

Hi,

The theme of Office Professional Plus 2013 is by design, . . .

October 29th, 2012 6:50pm

Hi,

The theme of Office Professional Plus 2013 is by design, and check to see whether change the color of window borders taskbar can do any help.

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October 29th, 2012 7:15pm

I would like to add my support for the contention that the colour styling of Office 2013 is a step backward. In the case of Outlook it's a giant leap backward and, from my own point, of view, makes using it a challenge which I don't look forward to. There should be, at least, an option to revert to the styling of Outlook 2010 which was pleasant to use and perfectly functional.

Jim B

October 31st, 2012 5:01am

Complaints about the white GUI, causing eye strain and headaches, is not new. Have a look at this forum thread in the Office 2013 preview section. This thread started in August 2 and has got a lot of replies until recently. I think it is time that Microsoft takes this more seriously because I expect this white interface might stop consumer and business adoption of Office 2013. Office 2013 has a lot of things to offer, but the GUI design ruins it.

Please Microsoft, start listening to your dedicated IT Pros here at TechNet!

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October 31st, 2012 11:37am

Hi all,

As a update, we have passed this information to the product group for consideration for a future product or update. We are sorry that at this time we have no other option to change the colors beyond what we has already

November 1st, 2012 4:15am

I'm using Dark Grey right now.  After a few GUI tweaks it isn't that bad.  Still very disappointing, especially since the applications are working so well.

With the added benefits and being a heavy Visio user I won't go back to 2010.  I'll just hope for a "brighter" future.

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November 1st, 2012 9:44pm

I, uh, wow. Semi-eagerly downloaded the RTM bits to test today (It's best if us support folks have at least seen the "new hotness" before we start getting tickets from folks...) and the blinding mono-monochromatic...ness was the first thing that I notice and it overwhelmed me. Seriously, nobody saw this as a problem? 

Number two was trying to figure out what window has focus.

Try this as an experiment: Open two basic windows, say word and excel side by side. Have your user sit in front and then ask - "if you start typing, which window will it go to?". The difference between an active and a non-active window is... black title bar text or grey titlebar text. Seriously. Finding the active window is bad enough w/ default Aero, now w/ Office 2013 it's amazingly worse.

The invisible-until-hover scrollbars will make for a nice uptick in tickets... "My email folders are gone!".

Please, please bring in some tissue-testers. And use a desktop screen larger than 12".

November 2nd, 2012 1:57am

When is this going to be fixed? I just spent a few hours uninstalling Office 2013 and re-installing Office 2010 - and resetting up my e-mail and such. I just can't live with the awful grayness and it was killing my eyes. I recommend against anyone using Office 2013 until this issue is addressed. Someone should lose their job over this - if it is truely "by design".

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November 2nd, 2012 2:59am

I don't quite get the complaints about headaches and so on, it's boring yes but I don't understand how a really simple colour scheme would cause eye strain.

But there is a bug that I mentioned in the other thread, the dark grey scheme was added at the last minute as it wasn't in the preview version, and the foreground text colour isn't dark enough against that grey.

But yes there needs to be a rethink quickly on the colours.

Also the Outlook icon is a bad colour, blue has always been for Word and Word 2013 still has a blue icon, changing the colour for the Outlook icon to blue is bad, causes confusion.
November 2nd, 2012 8:09pm

That's another way of saying this is been 'roadmapped'. Knowing how design updates are treated in Microsoft products, it is likely a proper UI change will occur in the version of Office following 2013. I'd also like it if you could forward to the design team that the Dark option in Visual Studio 2012 is fantastic, even down to providing the option to type out in light text with a dark background. This would be especially helpful to have in Outlook, Word, Excel and OneNote. A modern GUI is shifting over toward dominant darks and accenting lights. It's been proven that on a light dominant color scheme, extended periods of work causes more eye strain than a dark dominant one. If a simple option to provide a similar dark experience like Visual Studio 2012 can be made available via an update that would be quite nice  to have.

Thank you.

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November 3rd, 2012 9:37am

I'm also going back to Office 2010, and not rolling 2013 out until there's a more suitable theme...

What was wrong with the Black in 2010? The options in 2013 really are dire!

November 12th, 2012 11:38am

Haha, It looks exactly like this site. All the new MS products look like they're going back in time with all these plain, blah colors.


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November 13th, 2012 10:46pm

I have to say I actually quite like the colour scheme, except for my previous comment about the icon colours and the foreground font not being dark enough in dark grey mode.

But - and it's an important but - this is because I use the Windows Classic colour scheme, which is also grey, so it works with that.

There is no Windows Classic colour scheme in Windows 8, so both divisions of the company seem to have been on different pages.

November 15th, 2012 8:19pm

I want to add my total disappointment too to the current 3 shades of no-color only themes for Office 2013. To the guy that can't understand why we complain about eye strain, try to use Office 2013 in a 30" monitor! And my monitor has brightness and contrast both adjusted to 35% only. If I use 100%, Office 2013 will burn my eyes in 15 seconds.

 
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November 16th, 2012 1:02am

I don't quite get the complaints about headaches and so on, it's boring yes but I don't understand how a really simple colour scheme would cause eye strain.


It doesn't matter if you get it or not. People (customers) complain about it so it should be resolved!

For me it's a reason NOT to use MSO 2013!

November 16th, 2012 8:11am

Why?  If you use dark grey shouldn't be a problem.  I can't see how that is any brighter than the old 2010 colour scheme.  It's pretty much the same colour as the windows classic colour scheme.
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November 17th, 2012 3:59am

Well I'm a customer too.
November 17th, 2012 4:00am

I have just un-installed the Office 2013 Preview, and installed the Office 2013 RTM 60-day trial on my Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation PC (a spare machine). The Evaluation runs out in three weeks, and so far, I see no reason to re-install Office 2013 (or even Windows 8) on that PC. 

Thanks to the possibility to add a bit of contrast, Office looks a little less awful than before - but in terms of looks, it's still miles behind even Office 2003 under Windows XP, which is what I use on my main PC (the 'silver' theme is my favourite). Too much - way too much - has been sacrificed for the sake of touch-screen lookalikeness and modern style.

It annoys me that in order to upgrade my PC to the latest software-technological level, I have to accept what some tw... I mean person, has decided is Design.

"It is New, therefore it is Good", people tell me. "Get over it, live with it", they say. "Boll...." no, I'd better not write what I reply here. Suffice it to say that I disagree with those sentiments. A lot.



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November 18th, 2012 12:49pm

It DOES give you a headache.

MS do NOT dismiss that issue.

Also, Visual Studio 2012 is the same way. We are going to have developers start using it soon.

I excpect a lot of complaints then...

November 19th, 2012 4:55pm

But what is the point to it?  Like I said it isn't compatible with Windows 8, the old classic grey colour scheme seems to be the most similar and its not in Windows 8.  I can't see how its anymore touch friendly either really.

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November 19th, 2012 10:10pm

I just uninstalled Office Pro 2013.  The color scheme is ghastly and I frankly are quite disappointed with Microsoft's "bold" departure with both Office and Win8 (which I also uninstalled).   I've fought off the temptation to buy a Mac Book Pro for years now but I think MS has finally given me a good reason to say good bye.

Mr. Shark, meet MS.   They'd love to try to jump over you a few times.

November 20th, 2012 11:33pm

It is truly a travesty what they've done with Office 2013. There is feature after countless feature removed from Office 2010...and it looks terrible to boot. I'm absolutely baffled as to what the Office team has been doing for the past 3 years. It looks like they spent all their time removing things. Honestly, Office 2010 is a better product...hands down. PowerPoint is somewhat improved...but the rest of the apps are worse than what we previously had. I wish I was being over the top...but I'm not...they really are worse with less features than Office 2010. It also looks nothing like Metro. Metro is colorful and such...Office 2013 makes you want to commit suicide.

Just check out how many features have been removed: 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178954.aspx

I uninstalled it as well...it was making my eyes bleed. I can't tell you how much happier I am to be back and running Outlook 2010. It looks SOOOOO much better, has color, and 3d slider bars, and life! The flat look of grey eye death is finally gone! What a waste of my time...honestly...it's a waste of time to upgrade.

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November 21st, 2012 5:35am

I think they have spent a fair amount of time on Access, there are lots of differences including a lot of feature removals, haven't spent enough time fiddling with it to say whether it's better or worse, I suppose it depends on what features you use.

Edit: okay now I have, where the hell have pivot tables gone?

November 22nd, 2012 8:04pm

LOL, I agree it's quite terrible.

I changed my laptop to Windows 8 Pro, and I'm terribly missing Outlook 2007 on Windows 7.

Checking my e-mail regularly is quite depressing (all gray). There used to be a lot of color 'visual cues', where are those now?

I've installed "Classic Shell" and gotten some productivity back, but please Microsoft bring some consistency to this new OS.

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November 23rd, 2012 6:31am

Very disappointing "design" effort by the product group.

If Microsoft says it embraces "design", it should be reflected across all products:

http://vimeo.com/52173464

Skydrive is great, Windows 8 (the metro design) is great, office is... gray?

November 23rd, 2012 6:48am

I wish whoever made ugly like that just gets fired, stupid pail color

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November 24th, 2012 2:21am

I agree Office 2013 is not very pleasing to look at I am trying to think how I will convince users that it is better than 2010 and those with vision impairment that this is the right product. Microsoft lets have an update to resolve this or i do not think it will e widely implemented.
November 24th, 2012 4:50pm

"one small step for Microsoft, one giant leap backward for mankind."
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November 24th, 2012 9:04pm

Rather than plowing through all this griping, could someone from Microsoft address the actual BUG I have found in the dark grey scheme, to wit the foreground colour isn't dark enough and the yellow icons indicating the folders aren't bright enough against it?

The dark grey scheme was added for RTM and the foreground colours just don't work with it properly.

That's an actual problem that needs to be addressed.

November 25th, 2012 1:36am

I hear ya, just installed 2013 and am now uninstalling, will go back to 2010 and will not recommend 2013 to anyone.
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November 27th, 2012 9:04pm

It's rare I make a comment in a public forum such as this, but I have to completely agree.

The Office 2K13's Themes (or lack of) indeed needs to change, perhaps have more flexibility. 

It's pretty bad - and I've been around MS Office products since some of you were still in grammar school. 

Have a little insight that many professionals are still going to use workstations/laptops (flat-screens) versus tablets for a couple of years. Trying to keep our customers in mind along with our finances when we recommend/install the products in many businesses. I'm not so certain this feature (lack of) will be a big selling point for us who are promoting and waving our MS flags.  Being a consultant, we're working hard to (re)sell the products and grow our installation base.

As a consultant and IT director, I'll simply hold off making any recommendations to my business partners and clients in hopes the interface gets some sort of flexibility introduced into the product for people working in office environments. 

November 28th, 2012 10:46pm

OK, just installed the Office 2013 and seriously now, who at microsoft actually thinks this is cool?

My outlook looks like an old newspaper. The email is BORING. The whole of my desktop if GREY AND BORING. It has no life. OK, i understand that MS think they are creating a way of using devices and are not responding, so sure some people are going to hate it, but come on this is ridiculous.

I have three monitors and excel s-sheets open, email and word, the usual thing and I get a screen of utter dullness. I Can't differentiate between the apps and have to search to find my stuff.

All MS have to do is create a few more themes, thats all, not a big issue. Just add one like "Office 2010 Style" which was perfect thank you very much. 

My 2c.


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November 29th, 2012 1:23pm

As I mentioned in the original thread but wanted to point out here, I actually had to retreat from the gray themes because it makes an already wrong situation worse.

In Win8, all programs that I've seen except Office use a scrollbar that's darker than the scrollbar background.

In Office 2013, the scrollbar is white and the scrollbar background is gray--and this dissonance is only made more pronounced by the gray themes. With those themes, it can be momentarily, almost subconsciously, confusing sometimes as to where the scrollbar is and where the scrollbar background is when you're used to the way every other program works.

November 29th, 2012 10:31pm

Have to agree - I never can be bothered to comment on forums, but on installing Office 2013 I was expecting to be underwhelmed as usual, but found that the visual assault of the colour scheme was totally over the top. To further add to my confusion and consternation, there actually is a themes function, but it only has 3 themes that are virtually identical except for them being different shades of bland. Incredibly poor design that I won't be upgrading to on any computer that I actually use.
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November 30th, 2012 12:16am

What a disgrace.

MSFT - if this is your response to Open Source programs, then i'm happy to leave MSFT and move my company to AN Other vendor that is capable of keeping users happy and engaged.

Your theme in 2K13 is too clinical and difficult to navigate. As soon as this is deployed main stream, IT departments will be inundated with requests to UPGRADE back to 2010. And I dont blame them.

Stop forcing users into a path that they will not choose willingly. you are not the bemouth you once were and IT users will go & find their own solutions. That will piss IT & procurment departments off & result in loss of $$$ for you.

Anyone else think Mac is now seriously worth considering as mainstream desktop?

November 30th, 2012 6:17pm

Microsoft should consider Walt Disney's approach to designing Disneyland:

Upon seeing the original design for how the sidewalks were going to be laid out in Disneyland (with right-angle turns), Walt commented with the following:  "People aren't soldiers! They don't turn in at sharp angles! Curve the sidewalks! Make the corners round!"

However, after the park opened, Walt noticed that in some places, guests ignored the sidewalks and would cut across the grass, or jump over a hedge to get to the next attraction.  Initially, he was a bit vexed over this situation, but (being Walt Disney and all), he realized that he was not only fighting a losing battle, but his guests had developed a better traffic flow solution than the park's engineers.

He instructed his team to let the guests walk wherever they wanted, and to observe how the crowds would instinctively create the best path from A to B.  Based on this data, they tore out some of the original sidewalks and created new ones to accommodate the natural flow of the crowds.

Microsoft could use Walt Disney right about now...


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December 2nd, 2012 1:49am

We rolled out a small pilot of Office 2013 and had mixed reviews on the themes.  A couple liked the all white and gray options.  However, the inability to change the theme to appeal to the masses of people was a deal breaker for us.  We plan on discontinuing the pilot and rolling back to 2010 version.  If this is the direction Microsoft is going, we will likely look at Google Apps.  There seems to be so many choices out there that we don't need more arguments from our user base over color and how things look on the screen.  We fight enough battles with just getting folks to use technology effectively.  We will wait a while to see if things change, but at the same time, we will start looking.
December 3rd, 2012 5:34pm

bland, bland and blander... I like the new features but, the themes are terrible. making office flat and dull is not the way to go. did I say the themes are terrible??? MS please sort this out.
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December 4th, 2012 12:16am

What was wrong with the Black in 2010? The options in 2013 really are dire!


Agree 100%! where is the black???
December 4th, 2012 12:22am

Uninstalled and reverted back to 2010.

Agree on all of the theme comments and also couldn't tell what was clickable and what was just a text label.

Difference in Outlook read/unread mails was too subtle and required pause for thought whilst I examined the small colour difference.

Weird word/excel behaviour showing me pictures of greeting cards instead of a blank document when it started.

3 MS "flagship" products in a row now I have done this with and all for the first time ever. Windows 8, Visual Studio 2012 and now Office 2013.

I think an apple fanboi has landed a job at MS and is systematically sabotaging all their successful product lines. If not then MS have so lost touch with their user base. 

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December 5th, 2012 6:50pm

I can't find a GPO setting that forces it to dark grey either.  A search on "theme" gives me nothing relevant.  I assume I can do it via a registry setting somewhere.
December 5th, 2012 9:40pm

Ouch. Seriously.

Just installed 2013 and was completely unprepared for how gut-wrenchingly sterile everything is! The UI changes, sure - I can get used to them. I'm not going to go on a tirade about how everything was obviously perfect in the last version, because these kinds of changes don't always appear for the better at first.

But seriously? White or Grey? Just what I wanted, something to stare at all day that perfectly matches the color of the sky outside my window during a suicidally-depressing Seattle winter.

COME ON. THIS SUCKS.

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December 5th, 2012 9:52pm

So anyway, I spoke to a friend of mine who used to work in product development at a very large PC maker you will have heard of, and he spoke to a friend of his at Microsoft, and the thinking apparently is that you should use the "Apps for office" feature to add new features to Office 2013, so there is integration with Windows Store.

So in any office application, you sign into your Microsoft account, go to the insert menu, choose "Apps for Office" and download whatever you fancy, then insert it and fire it up.

And maybe one day someone will have created something you can add additional themes with.  Maybe.

December 6th, 2012 8:54pm

I just got a brand new computer, wiped it, loaded up Windows 8 RTM and Office 2013.  I highly debated going with Windows 7 instead as I'm not a big fan of the Metro interface on a Desktop, but decided I'll give Windows 8 another chance (I had only run the Release Preview previously).

Now that I've got Office 2013 loaded on and opened my email, I'm thinking I would have been better off with my initial inclinations.  My eyes are actually pretty good and I usually look at computers all day and have for many years now, but this new Office 2013 scheme is terrible!  Even with the dark gray it's not dark enough.  Give me a Black or a Blue or something better than this!

First getting rid of the option to turn off transparency in Windows Aero and now my Office looks and feels like crap.  Heck, I'll even accept a binary file edit via a HEX Editor to fix it at this point!

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December 7th, 2012 5:28am

Just loaded up Office 2013 for our VP of Operations, because he likes to test things out before everybody else. He immediately complained about the color schemes after trying all three. It lacks contrast in the worst way possible.

I have to make decisions for 280 staff people, and unfortunately the majority of them are aging, and I need to keep that in mind. I've loaded special software on a few computers for some coworkers that are having vision problems. There is no way I can move to Office 2013 until themes that will work for my staff are released.

Honestly, how hard could it be to write some code to let us select colors from a palette to customize a theme? You do it for SharePoint. You let us customize colors in Win7.

Why the step backwards?

December 7th, 2012 10:39pm

I really hate office 2013's themes. 

Sore eyes!!!!!!!!!

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December 11th, 2012 8:18pm

I have been working in software development since 1983 - yeah I'm old.  I'd have to say this is a mess.  I might as well load up MultiMate.  I'm also the IT manager of a small int'l corp and no way will this get rolled out like this.  Miscrosoft has just been getting lazier by the year.  Their code is fat and full of garbage (at this rate we will need 100GB to install office by 2020) and now they want it to be ugly and bright?  I can see how it would give some folks headaches, especially if they have a CRT (get rid of that thing!)  The RTM is not really any better.  You can add a few dismal colors and some silly junk on the top of your window so it makes it hard to see the minimize buttons etc.  I would wager you will see lots of unhappy people that upgrade or just buy it OTS.

I actually saw a link (here it is: h t t p :/ / www. thesofthelp. com/2012/10/an-amazing-office-2013-style-theme-for . html) where they made a windows 8 Theme based on Office 2013.  OK that did make me wonder if ^^^^^^^^ this guy is color blind.  Maybe it's good for color blind people?  Maybe the Indian fellow who designed it was color blind?  If you are color blind please comment.  I'd like to know if white/limited colors is better.

Well - that's all for my soap box.  Get it together MS! 

Oh - Merry Christmas all!

December 12th, 2012 12:33am

I couldn't take it... Went back to Office 2010 and carrying on with it.
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December 12th, 2012 7:59am

WTF    Microsoft really can't be serious I just installed it and then wanted to change the kak view only to find out on this forum that you can't. seriously MS what the hell made you guys think this is a cool theme!@!?@?!#@@?!!#@?!#@?@!?#$!@
December 12th, 2012 1:21pm

For Visual Studio at least you can download a theme editor and the Blue makes VS 2012 similar to VS 2010.

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/366ad100-0003-4c9a-81a8-337d4e7ace05

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December 12th, 2012 8:42pm

No blue theme? I am planning to uninstall the garbage of all garbage Office 2013 and go back either to 2007 or 2010

Good luck selling 2013, call me back when you fix the UI

December 14th, 2012 12:31am

I was trying look for a option to make it look better, it lacks the themes, Microsoft should release better themes as separate downloads.

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December 14th, 2012 4:49pm

Agreed.  I dislike the pale col
December 19th, 2012 4:19am

You can change the theme in Office 2013 by following the path as,

File > Account > Office Theme (White, Light Grey, Dark Grey)

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December 19th, 2012 9:51am

Please, Microsoft, give a blue theme. Thank you in advance!
December 20th, 2012 2:19pm

The default white theme causes me a headache and is totally unusable in my opinion. Dark gray I can live with, although it's depressive. Still there are some other things which left me with the feeling that this was thrown to the market in a hurry. I mean, how can QA oversee such things like missing separator lines in the inbox mail list? This really jumped into my eyes at first sight. Same thing in the mail preview window, its just too much of a mess of letters. I have no problem with MS adhering to simpler design patterns, but I don't see any sense in removing such well proven concepts like separators (and colors and icons).


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December 20th, 2012 8:07pm

Thank you for the feedback on Offices new look. We are actively collecting,
sorting and reading through feedback on Office 2013s design and User
Experience. As the audience for Office 2013 grows, we are being mindful of
patterns and pain points that emerge from user feedback. While we do not have
any additional Themes planned at this time, it is an issue we are watching very
December 20th, 2012 10:15pm

There's good and bad news there Jennie, but I feel that I should say that this is what a traditional beta program is for. Since MS has more or less done away with those for Office and Windows, then a Preview program will have to suffice. As you know, MS did have one of those for Office 2013, and the exact same feedback was given then, and even earlier than that for the handful of MVPs and the like who were in on an earlier preview. But look where we are today.
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December 20th, 2012 11:07pm

Thank you for the feedback on Offices new look. We are actively collecting,
sorting and reading through feedback on Office 2013s design and User
Experience. As the audience for Office 2013 grows, we are being mindful of
patterns and pain points that emerge from user feedback. While we do not have
any additional Themes planned at this time, it is an issue we are watching very
December 21st, 2012 1:45am

At least I can change the default for Windows 8 to something like a reasonable blue frame.  I am actually having trouble with office 2013 because I can't distinguish the boundaries, and the change in read and unread email I want the FROM name bold, not the slight blue on the subject, I can't scan it and the view is so "bright" even dark gray is bright.  Spend the day and create a hundred color themes including OFFICE 2010 Theme!

I also don't like products yelling at me the menu FILE  HOME  SEND/RECEIVE  FOLDER  VIEW  Conferencing (using communicator 2007)

How do I get a more pleasant menu as well, please stop yelling at me.


UPDATE:  I found a way to stop the yelling by modifying the ribbon and renaming each menu item by adding a space after it (except for FILE).  I also found the view settings to modify the font and highlight on read and unread messages, though it could be a lot better and is still limited on coloring etc.

But the theme is still...  well dead.


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December 22nd, 2012 2:03am

The same feeling when I used the office 2013. I do not like the themes, it is just grey-scale look. I unstalled 2013 and returned back to 2010 after I tried just once.
December 24th, 2012 2:55am

I too really hate the crappy 2013 interface, bland, colorless and bad on the eyes.

Have reverted to 2010 and will not roll out to anyone until resolved.  If I could go back to 2003 I would

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December 24th, 2012 3:18pm

+1 on all the above.

Microsoft, what were you thinking ?????

After years of refining a superb UI for office, it's all been tossed out and replaced by something that looks like an Unix X window interface of 15 years ago.

It does hurt my eyes and I don't think I'll be able to use it for more than a couple of days before going back to 2010.

At least give us a 'make this look a little bit like Office 2010' option.

Terrible mistake.

December 27th, 2012 11:33pm

+1 on all the above.

Microsoft, what were you thinking ?????

After years of refining a superb UI for office, it's all been tossed out and replaced by something that looks like an Unix X window interface of 15 years ago.

It does hurt my eyes and I don't think I'll be able to use it for more than a couple of days before going back to 2010.

At least give us a 'make this look a little bit like Office 2010' option.

Terrible mistake.

Microsoft,

Billions of people will have 2 choices left: Feel depressed by using their day to days office 2013 software or quit and move to something better and cooler... IOS and Android tablets be my guest! Youre finally killing the PC and therefore yourself by thinking we will all follow you in your dreadful madness and self-fulfilling believes.

And please, dont think one sec that youre facing the kind of people who refuse to learn/evolve. Windows 8 makes everything painful when it comes to be efficient at work and office 2013 with its great lack of contrast makes everything feel messy. Sorry guys, but your concept of casual working tools & OS is a complete failure and its tide to very little details.

Let people decide if they want to start or not with your modern UI or not, let them decide if they feel the need or not of a fast and efficient start menu, let them decide if they want to be able to contrast their interface elements in order to make things clear

Youve try and no one is gone a blame you for it but you obviously failed (see billions of negatives comments over the internet and watch your sales figures) now its time to listen actively to your customer community and do the little needed fixes quickly otherwise is going to be too late and we all need you guys in this industry surrounding because after all, youre making good products!

For the time being START8 from stardock software is our best friend and its a shame !

PN TASLE











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December 28th, 2012 6:37pm

I have to agree. Been programming and selling computer systems since 1978. I remember my first shipment of IBM PCs. I was selling CP/M machines before then. In any case I also thought, "This is Multimate!" or Volkswriter. This is a throwback to green/amber/paper white monitors. This is horrible. I never thought a visual interface could ruin a product, but this does. It is just unusable. We will be uninstalling it on our test machines and recommending our company does not use it for the time being. Windows 8 is bad enough, but this is too much to take.
December 28th, 2012 10:56pm

Drab, lifeless, ugly, incredibly ugly, no color option, no gradation, no depth or dimensionality. And really not fun to navigate to boot. Please, please fix this. I imagine we will have to abandon 2010 at some point. Our company is evaluating alternative products that can read and write office format files. I agree with one poster that Windows 8 and Office 2013 could be the thing that pushes people to Apple, Linux and Android.
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December 28th, 2012 11:01pm

While reading through this thread, it has made me wonder what this MS TechNet forum pages are for... I would think that it is created for user input and problem/issue solving but instead it is for MS to reply silly, filibustering replies like "While we do not have any additional Themes planned at this time, it is an issue we are watching very closely."

Thus:

Dear MSFT

WATCH very CLOSELY how your forceful approach on climatizing users, developers and PARTNERS such as myself and the millions of Microsoft "Fans" turn to other vendors because our faith in Microsoft has backslided. WATCH CLOSELY how your sales drop with each non-purchase, and your competition smile at your inability to call a competent team together and address the issues at hand! It is bad taste to keep your customers unhappy even after a preview release that obviously and miserably failed.

As for your theme choices, keep it, but I propose renaming them to bleak, pale and depressing. Just go and Google "Office 2013 themes" and see the results returned. I reckon 98% of the 162,000,000 results SCREAM for Microsoft TO WAKE UP!!

I challenge MSFT to publish MS Office 2013's Source Code and I'll guarentee you that in less than 10 hours someone will have created rainbow colored themes that will make MSFT look like Junior Developers! It certainly wouldn't take 3 years wasted!

SouthAfrican Regards,

LuckyLuke23

Please note that the opinion of the above person is that of his/her own personal capacity and does not pertain to any company or business he/she may be related to. 

December 29th, 2012 10:27am

Let me add another voice. I have been using Office 2013 for several months now on several production machines. I hoped the new look would grow on me. It hasn't. It's counter productive on both my laptop and tablet. It's hard to see what has the focus, what you need to click or touch to do what you need to do.
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January 1st, 2013 2:28am

Like everyone else I was very dissapointed with Office 13's display properties. Possably could be called the unlucky office.

I liked Office 10, but loved Office 11. Yes office 11 is the best version of Office I have come accross, vibrant in colours, easy to use. but one problem, It was designed for the Apple Mac!!

So when Office 13 came out, I expected a better than the 11 version, what a disapointment. Backwards, backwards we go. Do you think that the team responsible for the Mac development, could replace the Windows Office development team please.

January 3rd, 2013 1:10pm

Awesome..I really need them to change it... none of my end users will get until this is done

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January 3rd, 2013 8:26pm

There is no way I can roll this out to my users and expect to have a job the next day. 

Windows 3.0 had more life to it. Redmond must be kidding, right??? Redmond??? Hello???


January 4th, 2013 6:45pm

I have to agree. It really hurts my eyes looking at Outlook, and I get way too much email every day for Outlook to hurt this much. It hurts my brain and my eyes and it's making me nuts. People ask me if I'm crying when they see me, because my eyes are watering from having been looking at Outlook 2013 for too long. Also, you can't see what's highlighted, you can't see where the focus is, it's definitely a big step back from 2010 in style. Even that boring tan/yellow theme was better than this. Please add some style to Office 2013!!!!
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January 5th, 2013 2:55am

MICROSOFT, PLEASE, find SOME SMART GRAPHICS DESIGNERS and ask them to use their imagination to bring OFFICE 2013 back to life !!!!

Actually it shouldn't be too hard:

why in the world did you decide to make everything totally FLAT and WHITE (oh yes, GREY too if you like it !!!) ?????????

You are killing my eyes and wasting a lot, I mean, a lot of space between buttons, frames etc.... touch users work with fingers - I understand that - but you went beyond wildest imagination with this excessive UI spacing.

I bet you had to do that because, without colors and being everything flat, the only way you had to visually organize and separate different features in the UI was to use A LOT of "distance" between them, ergo these incredibly wide white spaces filled with nothing....killing everybody's eyes!!!!

....and - by the way - all this excessive spacing is steeling very precious pixels from the small 1366 x 768 tablet touch screens (which I use too)....making the Windows 8 tablet user even angrier!

You guys came up with a lot of good innovations lately but YOU TOTALLY FAILED on the USER INTERFACE side.

HUMBLE SUGGESTION to FIX THIS MESS:   

go back to using COLORS and BRING depth (or call it z-order dimension if you will) back in the game....don't you realize that by using 3 dimensions (instead of 2 = FLAT) you can communicate much more information with the same pixels???????   You had it right with AERO....try to come up with a new version of METRO that has all the good qualities of AERO combined and you'll see a lot of VERY HAPPY CUSTOMERS !!!!

 I truly hope someone in MSFT is listening and taking immediate action.

Thank you.


January 6th, 2013 12:41am

Dear Microsoft:

So far I have found two pretty major problems with Office 2013.  Unlike some others, I wont back out and reinstall 2010; I believe in Microsoft  and its ability, WILLINGNESS and, of course, capability to write code that customers want. Just look at the brilliance and beauty of Windows8 as an example.

These TechNet Forums were provided by you to give us a platform - these areas are a place where our voices can be collectively heard. And perhaps, hopefully, maybe even responded to by a Microsoft team member when the topic is deemed worthy. Which brings me to my point:

Issue 1) The Office 'Themes' are bad. In fact, they actually harm Office 2013 because of their sheer crappiness. If they weren't available, people would be bummed, and might ask for them.  However, you gave us Themes. But delivered, well, offensive and utter CRAP. That's why I mentioned that they harm more then help...

Issue 2) You removed (for reasons of CLUTTER, according to the TechNet 2013 Changes and Features article) the Auto Correct context menu when you right-click a spelling error. This removal is waaaaaay more of a blow to the quality of this product than the craptastic themes. Removed because they clutter? OMG you have got to be kidding me. PUT IT BACK. STOP BREAKING THINGS.

Sincerely miffed (and yet truly loyal),

MAXIMUS

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January 6th, 2013 2:12am

Late to the party - but I didn't install 2013 until 2013.....

The indignation on this thread is mild compared to what I'd like to say.  I just showed it to a fellow IT person & his immediate response was "You've got to be #$&@ing kidding me!"

He is in his early 30's & found it tough on his eyes.  50-something users will revolt.  Yes the gray makes it slightly better, but c'mon!

I'm now used to how things get moved in Office seemingly for the sake of moving them, but this is the worst move yet.  As has been said, Metro is (if anything) too colorful & Office is the opposite.  I realize the old joke of "How do you keep a gov't agency from finding something out?  Tell another gov't agency." could apply to a company as large as MS - but IMO, this proves it.  Did anyone ever think to coordinate Office & the new OS or run user testing?

Very sad.....

January 6th, 2013 6:28am

Please let us know which theme you are using when providing feedback on this thread. Also let us know what Windows version and Windows color scheme you are using. The released version of the product has three themes. If you are using White, please change to Light Grey or Dark Grey through File>Account>Theme or File>Office Account>Theme and let us know your experience.

Thanks,

Jennie, Program Manager - Office Support

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January 7th, 2013 8:47pm

Jennie,

I use the Dark Grey theme with the default Windows 7 theme on a brand new fresh installation of Windows 7. If you want to ask those questions, why don't you also ask, What monitors people are using? What resolution they have them set at? What brightness and contrast ratio do they use? Then you can force everyone that uses Office 2013 to use "MICROSOFT RECOMMENDED MONITOR SETTINGS" too.

Please fix the themes or add new ones we can download. There's a massive skinning culture on the Internet, I'm sure if you opened it up to the public, you would probably have 100,000 themes available to download in a week, and they'd actually be readable and not give you migraines!!!!!

As it stands, I MUST leave Outlook 2013 minimized most of the day and only click to pop it up when I need to check my email because if I leave it up, I will end up with a migraine by the end of the day, even if I don't really look at that monitor. It's like having the Sun sitting on my desk beaming me in the face all day. Please make it stop before I get skin cancer from Outlook 2013!!!!

January 7th, 2013 9:41pm

Please let us know which theme you are using when providing feedback on this thread. Also let us know what Windows version and Windows color scheme you are using. The released version of the product has three themes. If you are using White, please change to Light Grey or Dark Grey through File>Account>Theme or File>Office Account>Theme and let us know your experience.

Thanks,

Jennie, Program Manager - Office S

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January 7th, 2013 9:48pm

Jennie, the point is, it doesn't matter which of the 3 themes you use... White, light gray and the dark gray... they all look TERRIBLE!  Maybe this review will help the product team see the point on this.  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/28/microsoft_office_2013_review/

I've been using Windows since Windows 3.1 and even worked at Microsoft for 4 years.  NEVER in all this time has Microsoft released a product where the new look/feel/features made me uninstall it and go back to the previous version - until now.

I literally installed Office 2013, used it for a day and a half, couldn't take it anymore and uninstalled and went back to 2010.  Remember how the lead developer over at Apple got fired over the Maps application because he refused to sign an apology letter to their customers?  I never wish for anyone to get fired, but if there was ever a reason to do so at Microsoft, this is it.

I now do consulting for mid to enterprise level clients and perform System Center product deployments as well as OS image builds and deployments for desktops and servers.  There is no way I could ever in good conscience recommend an organization to move to Office 2013 on their new desktop images with the current themes.  The Blue/Black/Silver themes from Office versions past are all much preferred over the shoddy themes thrown into 2013.  With all of the feature updates that are in Office 2013, it's a shame that they will be ignored just because the team couldn't get the themes right.

I really hope someone there is truly listening here and Microsoft releases some sort of update with new/revised Office themes.  Until then, I'll stick with Windows 8 and Office 2010.

FYI - I'm using Windows 8 with a customized blue color scheme (similar to that in Windows 7).

January 8th, 2013 12:46am

Jennie,

My biggest issue is there is next to no difference between the themes. Sure you can call them white, light grey and dark grey, but honestly they really are more like white, kinda white and slightly less white. Add some color or just allow people to tone down the interface to a true "Dark" grey. I've been using Office 2013 since the preview and it has been terrible since I installed it. I went from constantly having my outlook open on a second screen to hiding it whenever I'm not using it because otherwise it is just glaring down at me. I currently have it set to the dark grey setting and it is not adequate. I have had several requests from other employees of my company to change the color and I hate telling them that I can't and that there is nothing I can do. Please add some new themes. Darker colors would be better.

Nate 

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January 8th, 2013 9:46pm

Yes the white, less white, and lesser white, options are bad. Eye strain! And ugly, but that's subjective.

That's not what bothers me though. Office 2013 is a desktop application, not a full screen metro app. Office 2013 apps under Win 8 always open as windows on the desktop. Okay? We got that?

And yet the Office 2013 app windows do not honor the Windows 8 theme colors! Particularly the window border color and the titlebar color. Just a solid white or gray window? Whose decision was this?!

I BET that Windows MS group is fuming over this, too.

I can't tell you how many times I wanted to close an e-mail message and instead closed the whole Outlook because with multiple Office windows open it's impossible to distinguish which titlebar belongs to which window without pausing my workflow and studying my screen.

That's baaaad, ok? Please make a dead-simple change to Office 2013 and include an option in the Office preferences "use Windows 8 theme" or whatever you prefer to call it. Please. Feel free to keep it turned off by default.

January 8th, 2013 11:25pm

I HATE, HATE, HATE all three of these color schemes in Outlook 2013.  They look absolutely horrible.  Is it too much to ask for the ability to create a custom color scheme for Office/Outlook?  Outlook running on Windows 8, however the windows version has little effect on the Office scheme at all.  Either allow for a custom color scheme or get some graphic designers that know the difference between good and bad layouts.

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January 9th, 2013 6:25pm

Jennie,

It feels like, to me, that those of us with vision issues were NOT considered. At all. Do you have ANY idea how horrible it is to try to see grey on grey when you have contrast issues with your eyes? Do you not realize that the older people get, their contrast vision starts to lessen naturally? Do you know that lessening of contrast vision is a known side effect of Lasik?

PLEASE give some color options for those of us who have a difficult time seeing. This is seriously horrible. :(

January 10th, 2013 9:58pm

I think Microsoft should learn from Facebook when it comes to such critical changes in products esp for those who have been always using Microsoft Windows and Office. If Microsoft would create a poll topic with screen shots on how would the Office 2013 looks like or what kind of themes would be available before even releasing the preview version, that would give the consumer a big credit of satisfaction and give the developers time to create an attractive GUI for the end user. 


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January 11th, 2013 3:09am

Why is the text on the right click menu GREY? I can hardly see it. It should be BLACK. Also I associate grey with being an option that is unavailable so it's just plain wrong as it stands. The lighter shade of grey is almost invisible.

LCD monitors are notoriously bad at displaying subtle shades of grey to the point where this the latest greatest version of office is pretty much useless. JUST WHY? It's not cool to make software this hard to use on a wide range of TN screen which are common place.

Skins limited to 3 shades of grey with no colour customisation. This can't be right in 2013? There is no such thing as MODERN. Repeat NO SUCH THING AS MODERN. We have been modern since art deco in the 1930's and the person who thinks they are doing something trendy new design is just plain wrong. Excel is about productivity and getting work done efficiently and not some stupid fashion statement. Quit being tards and make some high contrast skin that is easier to use.

1) People don't all share the same perfect eyesight.

2) TN monitors absolutely cannot display subtle differences in pale shades of grey.

Spreadsheets are one of the most dull and boring things ever devised yet you managed to make it even more unappealing. That's just funny and given the options available I think google have a chance to catch 90% of office software users.

Seriously - this the latest office + windows 8 has me looking seriously at alternatives.

January 11th, 2013 6:57pm

Another vote for doing something about this. I found this by searching for "make office 2013 less ugly". That alone should speak volumes. 

It's so ugly that I'm using Libre Office on my Windows 8 laptop, I only tolerate it on my desktop because I must. 

I've had exactly 1 user ask for an upgrade from 2010 and then showed her the UI, upgrade request cancelled. Truly, this is one ugly user interface. And all caps for the menu items, whoever made that call needs to read the studies indicating that using ALL CAPS is not only yelling but makes text less legible and readable. 

For the most part I like how Office 2013 works but it's just hideous to look at. 

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January 12th, 2013 7:51pm

Problem for me with a multi-monitor setup is there is almost zero contrast between the active and inactive windows.  This leads to mistaken inputs to the wrong windows and extra effort/clicks to verify I'm looking at the active window.

I am using the Windows theme with a dark desktop background.  

January 13th, 2013 12:27am

I am so very happy about MS Outlook in 2013 now functioning without sync errors.  After years and years from Outlook 2007 to 2010, my outlooks have been deluged with sync errors, which no solution was ever intended it seems.  The sync issue exits today because I use msn mail addresses that go back to the origin of the msn, now hotmail and outlook and live all tide up, bundled or whatever.  Yep, the hotmail accounts on an MS Outlook 2007 or 2010 has always generated these sync errors and now they do not happen with MS Oulook 2013 and I say yeah!  I can live with dull windows' colors better than living with stupid and seemingly unnecessary sync errors on my email accounts.

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January 13th, 2013 5:37am

I would like to another pleeeease... fix that helpless grey interface, or at least provide a theme editor similar to the one provided for Visual Studio 2012 after the releave of their own pale interface:

http://afsawaf.blogspot.com/2013/01/feature-i-would-like-to-see-in-visual.html

January 15th, 2013 2:26pm

Jennie,

It feels like, to me, that those of us with vision issues were NOT considered. At all. Do you have ANY idea how horrible it is to try to see grey on grey when you have contrast issues with your eyes? Do you not realize that the older people get, their contrast vision starts to lessen naturally? Do you know that lessening of contrast vision is a known side effect of Lasik?

PLEASE give some color options for those of us who have a difficult time seeing. This is seriously horrible. :(

As already pointed out in the quote above eyesight changes throughout our lifetime. Every student in Biology or Medicine may remember microscopy class and the enormous aha moment when dyes were added to help transform grey scale images into wonderful worlds of color. Our eyes process color differently than black and white contrast images due to the fact that different receptors (cones) are used. With the Windows logo using red-green blue-yellow so well - I would like to know what led to the drastic change in interface presentation and what are the presumed benefits (greater interface speed due to less color processing? Were there cognitive aspects to lead us away from a certain interface type? I am sure there is some form of engineering aspect that led to this interface - if MS were so kind as to share the insight it may help us understand - before customers spend undue amounts of time researching, trying to change - or even uninstalling Office 2013 to get color back. 
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January 17th, 2013 12:34am

The engineering reason is that to get the roaming profiles (i.e. the new in "the cloud" Skydrive profiles) to work they have to use the dullest scheme possible, so that when you log in on a crappy computer anywhere the office scheme will work with whatever Windows scheme is on that PC.  At least that seems to be the impression I am getting from using it.  Tech people like us probably aren't using that feature but it's all about Skydrive.  The colour scheme isn't the only issue, I've also got a thread going on here about these profiles overriding locally set GPOs.
January 17th, 2013 7:50pm

I think you meant "By poor design."  I think I'm going back to Office 2010 until it's fixed.  Their "design" is causing a headache and sore eyes.
No kidding. I had Office 2013 installed for two days and couldn't stand the bleak life sucking interface of Outlook so I reverted back to 2010. Get it together MS, if you want people to move to the next Office you've got to get your head out of you know where. I'm the IT Admin at a College and we will NOT be downgrading to Office 2013 until you add some warmth and color options to it.
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January 17th, 2013 8:06pm

Yeah... I tried to get used to the new "design" ... three times

no luck... It`s my third time now to uninstall Office 2013 and install again Office 2010 :)

By the way Windows 8 is not so bad when you install a third party App to return the Start menu and make it usable.

I hope that there will be third party apps that will make Office 2013 usable too. But for now I`ll have to use Office 2010 :)

January 17th, 2013 8:50pm

Hideous.

I bought Office 2013 through my company's Home User Program for $9.95 and after installing it I realize that I paid too much. 

I've been using Microsoft products professionally since before Windows 3 but I really can't use Office 2013 at all - it's just horrible to look at and has no compelling features.  Outlook is quite simply the ugliest, most repulsive piece of software I've ever seen.

How can a company be so stupid?

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January 19th, 2013 7:58am

"The invisible-until-hover scrollbars will make for a nice uptick in tickets"

Tell your users they can't send a ticket until a) you give them a 10-minute orientation or b) they spend ten minutes using the program with the good sense the lord gave them. If, after either of those, they still have questions, that's your cue to hire new people.

Then, too, I'm referencing a guy who has trouble identifying the active window short of fireworks going off. I'd say it's pretty apparent. My users were acclimated to Windows 8 and off to the races months ago, and Office 2013 was a pleasant upgrade for all. 

My theme is dark grey/stars and I use it all day long with no eye-strain issues, bi-focals and all. Bunch o' fuddy-duddies.

January 19th, 2013 10:23pm

Haha, It looks exactly like this site. All the new MS products look like they're going back in time with all these plain, blah colors.



I'd say clean and hip, two steps ahead of the competition. Mature.
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January 19th, 2013 10:26pm

"it's still miles behind even Office 2003 under Windows XP"

I think we've ID'd the real issue here. If you were put off by Office 2007 and just couldn't handle the new look and feel of the ribbon, despite the solid reasoning behind it, then you're gonna have a real issue as the ribbon moves forward. Now worries, as Google Docs still uses the old-fashioned file menu: it's a real retro "blast from the past" throwback whenever I watch someone working with Google Docs. you want a garish collection of colors and icons? Apple's got that, and they'll never change, 'cause their users are inflexible technophobes, too.

January 19th, 2013 10:40pm

Dude, you clearly have not spent five minutes using the new office. All of the "removed" features are there in better form. Clip art just got a whole lot easier with "Online Pictures" and who's sharing e-mail attachments these days? Hey, welcome to the cloud, baby! Yeah, I'm gonna miss picture manager, like the plague. We use Photo Gallery.

This entire thread should be closed and placed in a time capsule to be read a year or two from now. The world will be using Office 2013 and we'll all have a good laugh.

By the way, after a few weeks of use all of my users--ALL OF THEM--want Office 2013 for their home as well.

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January 19th, 2013 10:48pm

Dude, you clearly have not spent five minutes using the new office. All of the "removed" features are there in better form. Clip art just got a whole lot easier with "Online Pictures" and who's sharing e-mail attachments these days? Hey, welcome to the cloud, baby! Yeah, I'm gonna miss picture manager, like the plague. We use Photo Gallery.

This entire thread should be closed and placed in a time capsule to be read a year or two from now. The world will be using Office 2013 and we'll all have a good laugh.

By the way, after a few weeks of use all of my users--ALL OF THEM--want Office 2013 for their home as well.

Can't tell if Microsoft employee, Fanboy or technet troll...
January 19th, 2013 10:56pm

LOL - I think the MS developers finally found this thread. :)
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January 20th, 2013 3:25am

My users were acclimated to Windows 8 and off to the races months ago, and Office 2013 was a pleasant upgrade for all.

Months ago?  It was officially released in October so I think I can safely say your environment is atypical.

I've always found one of the problems with Microsoft (not that I'm saying you work for Microsoft but you're clearly an early adopter, so I'm guessing it's a tech company you work for) is that they don't actually have to pay for their own software so they can have everything under the sun installed.

In the real world people have to pay for these things and Windows 8 and Office 2013 don't look like good reasons to upgrade.  And I have tested it now quite extensively and there are some serious issues with feature removal, mainly in Access.

Technology companies with people highly-skilled in IT are not the majority of users of Windows and Office.

January 21st, 2013 8:07pm

The graphical interface of Office 2013 is really bad and the design is not suitable for use intessive. Thank you for making the necessary to provide an update of the product to have more colorful icons and theme approaching the interface of Windows 8 (Start Screen). Last, notifications emails should again allow the execution of actions. Integration with Windows 8 has lost these functions.

Currently it is clearly not feasible to conduct a migration to MS Office 2013. The recommendation is to stay on the version of Office 2010.
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January 22nd, 2013 4:04pm

Amazing, I thought Office 2010 was bad. In fact I never switched from Office 2007 because I just hated the "grey" of Office 2010 in comparison to 2007.

However Office 2013 is just hideous.

Do you know what it reminds me of - Linux! Funny how they have made Microsoft Office look like Open Office.

Seriously Microsoft PLEASE bring back the Office 2007 Blue. Please, please please!!!

January 26th, 2013 6:47am

Agreed, The Office 2013 UI is shockingly bad. I shifted back to Office 2010 pretty quickly.

It will be going nowhere near our School network anytime soon until something gets changed.

It would be an improvement if we could actually manage the Office UI Theme via registry like you could in Office 2007/2010 but you can't in 2013 as it ignores the registry entry and dumps everyone back into the hideous white theme.

Another fail by Microsoft, Its almost as bad as Windows 8.


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January 27th, 2013 3:50am

Office 2013's UI is toooooooooooooooo UGLY!!! Not only this, windows 8 and visual studio 2012 are the same! The designers should be Xed!!!

January 27th, 2013 12:11pm

I normally do not participate in blasting sessions, as normally they are not productive.  However, I am really struggling with Office 2013.  It does not give me a head ache, but it is so much more difficult to read.  It really is a step backwards.  I thought I would get used to it, but my laptop has 2010 and it is a joy to use comparatively.

I hope someone develops a theme pack or something to make Office 2013 (particularly Outlook) easier to read.

Really is a shame.

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January 29th, 2013 7:24pm

I'm not one to normally comment in these kinds of threads but I am inclined to agree with my colleagues that Office 2013's lack of any color is really unpleasant to look at.  It doesn't seem to fit in well with Windows 8 either which is almost over the top colorful.  I've been using both Windows 8 and Office 2013 for a while now and while it took a little while Windows 8 has really grown on me but Office 2013 has not.  I guess the word that jumps out in my mind when considering Office 2013 from a visual standpoint is sterile, it feels so sterile.  This feeling of sterility is only amplified when one goes back and forth from Office to Windows where one is so colorful and the other's only options are all grayscale.  I'm not suggesting that Office needs the bold color scheme that Windows 8 is using but a little bit of color would go a long way.
January 29th, 2013 8:10pm

I found this thread and created an account on the forums because of this problem.

Word especially really hurts my eyes on my 24" monitor, where the document in the center of the screen is flanked by two unnecessary bright white panels.  Yes it really lacks pizazz in all three of the "themes" (which was a real surprise considering Win8's great looks) but more importantly it's just not an interface I want to look at for long because it hurts and makes my eyes tired.   In a dark room I repeately reach for the brightness to reduce it's assault on my eyes but the lack of contrast makes everything even more difficult to see.  I'm 29 and have 20/20 eyesight with no contacts or glasses if it matters.  I cant imagine what others with worse vision are going through.  (This may not be a problem for tablet users because the screens just aren't that big.)

Microsoft, you need to consider a few things here. 

1)  Add themes with color and improved contrast.  Please don't fall into a trap thinking "They don't like it now, but they will and when they do we'll be heroes."  It's not just about style, it's about discomfort and usability.  This is just not one of those "trust me, you'll like it" situations.  If you're trying to make some kind of statement with the current themes, keep them but you need to add others.

2)  FILE  EDIT  VIEW etc. are too brash in all caps.  This is another small design detail that overall impacts user comfort.  Nothing else in Win8 to my knowledge shouts at the user like this and nothing about it is "modern."  If you need to be convinced, look at companies who have recently modernized their fonts and logos, such as GE or even Microsoft's new logo.  'Modernization' was a priority, but there was no sudden embrace of all caps.  (There is an interesting article about GE's new font and how they tried to modernize it and make the company feel more accessible on the web somewhere.)

3)  The lack of "button edges" around functions doesn't bother me too much, but consider an option (a checkbox on/off perhaps) to add button edges if the user desires.  I understand that on a tablet, button edges may suggest to the user that they need to touch more accurately in the square than they need to, but with a mouse it's nice to have the subconcious? mental clue that the cursor is in the right place.

You can implement all of these things very easily while preserving the original look for other users, and for the price of Office software and it's status as the flagship productivity suite it should offer baseline adjustments for comfort.  Right now it's like a Rolls Royce without adjustable seats - it's a lot of money and we can't get comfortable.

I hope the time I spent giving well thought out feedback (as opposed to quickly written criticism) convinces you how important this is to me and possibly the predicted success of the product.  A lot of people are going to notice this in Microsoft stores, and who knows how many people might be silently turned away by this because afterall, Office 2010 is still a great product.
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January 30th, 2013 8:20pm

Hi,

I am working with Office 2013 since one day. I aggree the colors are extremely problematic. It is all too white.

I'm mainly working with a self programmed Access Database (coming from ACC 2003), with several forms for customer, goods, delivery scedule and so on.

There are only white frames on almost white background. You do not see which window is active. It is terrible.

Don't want to reprogram the whole GUI. I just want to use my old database on a new stable office (in 2003 suffering from SP3 bugs).

@Microsoft: please add some flexibility on choosing color 

January 30th, 2013 8:35pm

Im sure all the new features will be nice - but I am on Windows 7 and suddenly Office looks like some out of place beast.  I dont want window frames that look like a MAC or Windows 8 - Im on Windows 7 - use the OS and my configured styles please.  Really are your APIs for Windows so bad you have to rebuild them to bloat apps even more.  A consistent look and feel is very important to usability.  You just made Office LESS useable.

Im in second thoughts about upgrading older machines to Windows 8 and I hear the price will double tonight.  So imaging my likelihood of upgrading tomorrow... Nil.

Now my next Workstation.  Windows 8 which in a few years will look half windows 8 and half windows something else - or finally admit they cant keep a consistent look and feel and go MAC.

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January 31st, 2013 5:03am

Is there a way to use visual studio to change the way that Office 2013 works?
January 31st, 2013 5:04pm

This IS awful.

It seems MS is missing the mark by a mile about intuitive interfaces. This color scheme is terrible, the worst I have ever seen, its plain, its nasty and very hard to navigate, even the blue icon in that is now on the taskbar looks like Word, not Outlook forcing you to really read the tast bar whereas it used be easy, just scan and look for a color.

Who is in charge over there??? Did you outsource this to soveit russia?

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February 1st, 2013 9:02pm

Throwing my hat in the "Office 2013 UI is beyond horrible" ring. Is this why I paid for software assurance on my EA for...???
February 2nd, 2013 7:24am

I just wanted to add my support to the this request.  I have just upgraded to office 2013.  The lack of any colour is horrible.  I too wished I had not upgraded now.  Please add colour, how can anyone think this is a good design
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February 2nd, 2013 3:05pm

Is there a way to use visual studio to change the way that Office 2013 works?

Go to the insert menu -> "Apps for Office".  You can create custom apps.
February 4th, 2013 8:14pm

In my company (80 000 computers installed) the corporate medical director and ergonomic advisor have advised the board not  to shift to office 2013 as the interface is in breach with several ergonomical standards on screen visibility in several countries throughout the world.

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February 6th, 2013 11:39pm

Which ones?  It must meet OSHA standards, MS isn't that dumb.
February 7th, 2013 3:58am

Microsoft

I am so disappointed in the narrow perspective Microsoft have taken here in your design. I am the CEO of a
charitable disabilities organisation and the new 2013 MS Office is a poor design
for use and readability. It does lack consideration of Occupational Health and Safety Standards
and completely fails when considering those with visual disabilities. Even I find it prisms when reading and my eyes are straining.

You have gone for design over function and despite the new additional options can't you see that if the
visual fails no one will spend the time on the program to use it to its full capacity.

I have mistakenly just installed this an all of our systems to correct an issue in outlook 2010
which the new installation did, but now have a larger issue of workplace health and safety.

Please create some add ins or upgrades to correct this quickly.



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February 7th, 2013 7:02am

Just installed Office 2013 and am flabbergasted by how white (even the "dark" themes) actually are. I mean, seriously? You get it completely right with the dark interface in VS 2012 and then completely bomb on Office. Maybe your business groups should talk a bit more to each other about design thematics. I'm going back to 2012; there's no way I can stand to look at this much white for 12 hours a day..
February 8th, 2013 4:50am

Dear,

I do not think continously cut&paste your default answer "We have passed this information to the product group for consideration for a future product or update.. and or "we are monitoring pain points..." " is what we would expect from a professional forum like this. If in large companies I hear Execs opposing to upgrading to office2013 beaucse of the lack of options to change colour schemes apart from three shades of grey and them facing potential OHS complaints from medical staff and/or employees, I would not hesitate one second and escalate this up to the level of Balmer. You cannot continue to ignore these valid remarks provided by (so far) very loyal users.  I think 99.9% of Office use is on corporate /academic / private desktop computers not on a tablet. Quite honostly on my 3 - 26 inch expensive monitors the least I want is a boring eighties style interface that might (I say might) work on a tablet.  In my environment (professionally and privately) I hear nothing but complaints about this dreadful interface (and it's inability  to be changed).  I cannot imagine that "I will de-install and go back to Office 2010" or : " I will not upgrade" is the kind of response you might want from your most valuable existing user base. I think there is a lot at stake for your Office business unit so if I where you I would take these signals extremely serious and not wait even a week to provide additional templates so that you can put your existing hughe Office user base back in their comfort zone or there might be no real further future for this product. In my view the future of office is still on a desktop, not on a tablet or surface that (at current) nobody buys.

PS: 26000+ views on this topic: got the message folks? Steve Balmer? Anybody listening at MS to your users (your bread and butter)?


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February 8th, 2013 3:05pm

I just installed Office 2013.....and my wife looked at it and told me to 'Get if off and go back to 2010. Bland, Bland, Bland!!! Horrible design.
February 9th, 2013 6:39am

I just installed MSO 2013 Pro Plus.. I am extremely disappointed in the thema MS went with. I expected the ribbon addition, but I ALSO expected the ability to adjust the theme. I've been working with SharePoint since it's initial release and have watched the ability to brand it's UI's with increasing capabilities. I applauded MS with every upgrade!

However, with the ribbon's appearance in SPS 2010 and the addition of a more integrated MSO stack with SPS, I expected the latest version of MSO to have the same thema customization abilities. Boy, was I DISAPPOINTED!!! I've read that this was "by design". Sorry MS, there was no design consideration that involved the comments sent in during the beta testing (RTM). Why did you bother asking for opinions, you did not listen! If I wanted my PC to display apps like an APPLE, I would have purchased a Mac.

Why did you provide different color schemas for all other MS products and then blow it with MSO 2013? Maybe, just maybe, some of your designers are in need of rehab!

MS is not a Mac and it's very sad to see you all are using their ideas. Be creative, three variations of "white" put us back to pre-95 computing. I had a better UI experience on my Commodore 64....

HELLO, IS ANYONE AT MS LISTENING TO THE COMMENTS FROM THE PEOPLE THAT KEEP YOU AT THE TOP BY BUYING YOUR PRODUCTS? APPARENTLY NOT. I really hope that you all come our with a thema release that allows us to bring some color back into Office.

Don't give us excuses, give us THEMES!!!!!

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February 11th, 2013 7:52am

Why can I have beautiful themes in my Gmail web site, but on my locally installed Office app all I get is this horrible, eye strain-inducing flatness? And why, WHY, did they change the outlookicon to blue, surely confusing millions of users for weeks? This is why people aren't buying WinPho! Its ugly, flat & boring. We can see three dimensionally for a reason. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go back to 2010, which was bad enough with its extremely limited color options, but at least had some.


February 13th, 2013 12:28am

Like the others in this post, I have installed and then uninstalled MS Office 2013.  What a terrible trick.. I mean marketing plan to lose your customer base!  The three themes are a joke but I am not laughing and will not be recommending it as an upgrade.  I have been working in Healthcare IT for many years and past experience tells me that 2013 Office will be pushed aside.  Doctors, Nurse, and other Professionals will see only as another failure on the Great Microsoft Company.  At the pace Microsoft is going it wont be much longer and Apple will take over the Healthcare completely.

Please correct this Poor Design soon!

Thanks

Marty, IT System Administrator

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February 13th, 2013 5:25am

Ya it's kak, but honestly after a couple months you get used to it, I am still waiting for an update that fixes it...,.
February 13th, 2013 12:57pm

Microsoft is stripping away features one after another. My eyes are too sensitive to brightness and I have reduced brightness/contrast both to Zero and pure white is still eye scotching to me. In XP, I could gray every window through Windows Appeareance settings. That removed in Windows 7 okay. Office 2010 black color theme was wow for me. Now the darkest I can set in Office 2013 is still too bright. I am wearing sun glasses :@ (this is an angry emo)
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February 14th, 2013 1:43pm

I found this solution for centrally setup black Office 2013 color theme for all my users (this is a part of common user login script):

REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Roaming\Identities\%USERNAME%@%USERDOMAIN%_AD\Settings\1170\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}\PendingChanges /v Data /t REG_BINARY /d 02000000 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common /v "UI Theme" /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

Replace 02000000 with  00000000 and </d 2 /f> with </d 0 /f> for completely white theme or 1 for middle.

We use russian Office version. For other languages key 1170 may have other values probably.


February 15th, 2013 2:12pm

I found this solution for centrally setup black Office 2013 color theme for all my users (this is a part of common user login script):

REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Roaming\Identities\%USERNAME%@%USERDOMAIN%_AD\Settings\1170\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}\PendingChanges /v Data /t REG_BINARY /d 02000000 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common /v "UI Theme" /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

Replace 02000000 with  00000000 and </d 2 /f> with </d 0 /f> for completely white theme or 1 for middle.

We use russian Office version. For other languages key 1170 may have other values probably.


A black theme? You are kidding, right? Still no color option? No thanks. I'll just stick with Office 2010 which doesn't have this massive problem.

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February 15th, 2013 5:59pm

Nothing to add to all that has been said in this forum and many others!

Microsoft: Please, Please give us the ability to change these 3  horrible blinding themes!

February 15th, 2013 11:06pm

I agree 1000% Interface sucks large... and I am a Office user since 1990. 
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February 17th, 2013 4:58pm

I am experiencing eye strain - after minutes of working with 2013. MS really missed it with this interface. If there is no change soon - I'm going to uninstall and go back to 2010.
February 17th, 2013 5:04pm

Just spent over an hour going through the .exe files and .dll files looking for the graphics just in case I could manually replace them.
I found a whole bunch of icons, but the main bulk and look of the menu has eluded me.
I want the functionality of 2013 (there are some nice new features that I like!) with the look of 2010.  Opening them side by side it's clear as day that 2010 is WAY nicer, easier on the eye and easier to find your icons.

Why can't we just pick the overall colour as we do with Windows 7 aero where I can make it any shade of any colour I want.  How is this progress?! :)

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February 18th, 2013 3:33pm

I find the gray - even the dark gray doesn't have enough contrast.

The flat style is disturbing also - but I guess I'll need to live with that.

Is there a way to get some color?

February 18th, 2013 6:22pm

I installed 2013 and like others on this thread was shocked at the flatness, no contrast and awful bright white of the interface.  So I proceeded to find the options to change the themes, shocked again that MS only had three choices.   Now anyone who has programmed knows once the code to change a theme is embedded into a program it's very easy to add any color scheme. This was a conscience decision on MS part to only offer three colors for whatever reason.  

I decided to give it a few days however when I came in this morning to open Outlook none of my messages appeared on the screen.  That was it, it has been uninstalled and 2010 is back on my system.  I also downloaded Open Office and will seriously consider moving my company to Open Office.  

One final thought, I'm very shocked that MS has ignored this thread which has been up since October.
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February 19th, 2013 3:35pm

One final thought, I'm very shocked that MS has ignored this thread which has been up since October.

I am not shocked at all.  Microsoft does not care about customer input.  People complained loudly about wanting a star menu on Windows 8 but Microsoft did not listen.   I am  still using Office 2003 and was planning on upgrading to Office 2013 since Microsoft will soon end support for Office 2003.  But after reading all these negative comments about Office 2013 I have decided to purchase Office 2010 instead.  Another factor against purchasing Office 2013 is the fact that once installed on a computer one cannot reinstall it on another computer.  From what I have read, once installed it will be tied to that computer forever.  So if one decides to replace their computer, it will be necessary to buy another copy of Office 2013. 


February 20th, 2013 7:36pm

Add my voice to the call for a darker theme.  I just upgraded from 2010.  I can't use 2013 as is.    Even with the so-called dark gray theme, which we all know is anything but dark.  Tried darkening the display but then all of the little contrast there is goes away.  It's uncomfortable and an eye strain no matter how I try to adjust things.  TERRIBLE!! TERRIBLE!!  Very disappointing design, and an even more disappointing response from MS.    
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February 21st, 2013 5:48pm

I hate the new look and feel of Office 2013.  I think Microsoft is changing it "just to change it" but now this is a huge step backward!  It is too hard to see the menu nav icons at-a-glance.  My eyeballs hurt with this failed effort at simplicity.  This is the first time I have ever been disappointed by an Office upgrade, and I've been using Office since the late 1980s.   I am tempted to go back to Office 2010.

February 22nd, 2013 1:42pm

Is there any way to download themes from 3rd party sites?  I hate this, about ready to just say F-it and return the dern subscription.  Its unusuable.
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February 22nd, 2013 7:27pm

I have installed office 2013 and happy with the all available theme.

Sarah

Browse for <a href="http://www.sqlservermanagementstudio.net">Microsoft SQL</a>

February 22nd, 2013 7:39pm

I have tried all three themes and I agree with everyone else it is too white with no contrast. My eyes hurt from looking at emails in Outlook, when that has never happened to me.

Please fix this and at least add an Office 2010 theme. That would make everyone much happier.

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February 23rd, 2013 12:07am

It took me all of about 5 minutes to decide to cancel my trial subscription.  Seriously, is the color scheme a prank?  The old 2010 scheme was fine so some designer must have decided to try to sabotage Microsoft.
February 23rd, 2013 11:01pm

I agree....  I uninstalled 2013 and now I'm screwed.  I've tried every conceivable way to get 2010 working again but no go.  Looks like I'm stuck with 2013.  Come on Microsoft, release some more color schemes and make it a bit less stressful on your eyes.  
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February 25th, 2013 7:12pm

Same here, installed it yesterday and uninstalling it right now. Too bright, too little contrast, separations too hard to distinguish, very bad UI. Doesn't take a UI guru to see how bad this actually hits on productivity.

Why would MS ruin such a Cash Cow as Office? Well ask the Windows Mobile team about monumental fails.

There is no way we will install this for our users (small company, 150 users).


February 27th, 2013 2:13pm

Same here, installed it yesterday and uninstalling it right now. Too bright, too little contrast, separations too hard to distinguish, very bad UI. Doesn't take a UI guru to see how bad this actually hits on productivity.

Why would MS ruin such a Cash Cow as Office? Well ask the Windows Mobile team about monumental fails.

There is no way we will install this for our users (small company, 150 users).


Completely agree. Microsoft has "ruined" Office.
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February 27th, 2013 5:52pm

Are the folks at Microsoft using this piece of crap 2013 white all over the place Outlook client?  Probably not otherwise they would be the first to revolt.  Who the hell wants to look at a bright white screen all day!  MICROSOFT I'M GOING BLIND HERE AND YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!!!
March 5th, 2013 3:09am

Um...I have worked in IT for a business for the past 10 years. We have a new user starting and we just got the new computer...upon loading up 2K13 I was shocked. Is this a sick joke Microsoft? It honestly is REALLY bad. Who's at the helm in the design dept over there?? Apart from the color...the layout and apparent removal of features is ridiculous. A new version is supposed to be BETTER. How is 2013 ANY better than 2007 or 2010? Unreal...What are you trying to do? Go back to TW design elements of Windows 3.1??
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March 5th, 2013 6:00am

Im sorrybecause I really liked Office 2013but Microsoft designers totally flopped this release. I hope they consider the people with eye diseases for the next release that if we dont get blind before.
March 5th, 2013 2:37pm

Are the folks at Microsoft using this piece of crap 2013 white all over the place Outlook client?  Probably not otherwise they would be the first to revolt.  Who the hell wants to look at a bright white screen all day!  MICROSOFT I'M GOING BLIND HERE AND YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!!!

Microsoft employees older than 18 are likely not using it.

Our company made a decision just today to not upgrade to Office 2013 because of the interface and we will not be subscribing to Office 365 because of this interface that is used in its Office offering.

We will purchase new licenses to allow us to downgrade to Office 2010, but we will not be spending the type of money we would have if they hadn't screwed up the UI.

We also will not purchase or upgrade any desktop or laptop with or to Windows 8 and will continue to install Windows Server 2008 R2 on our physical and virtual servers.

None of us in the shop can understand what happened to Microsoft, bad decision after bad decision.

Office 2013 UI, Windows 8 UI, Windows Server 2012 UI, Surface RT and Pro, Windows Phones, etc.

Maybe Ballmer is trying to kill the company or is this all part of Steven Sinofsky's revenge.

Ex-Microsoft Partner.

One additional thing: Just noticed in the news, Microsoft is discounting Windows 8 to developers to increase sales (Today: 3-6-2013), which is very unlikely to increase sales of Windows 8. I have found that on a desktop or laptop almost nobody likes the UI.

 
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March 7th, 2013 5:09am

I have to create a profile just want to comment on this issue, give me back the freaking theme that at least match my windows theme, God, I am going to suit Microsoft for blinding me or causing my eye to go bad as time goes by on using office 2013, I am going to say no for the upgrade also to the committee. 

why is it so hard to at least make it match the theme windows is using?

March 8th, 2013 8:31pm

I've been using Office since 4.3.  Some of the features in 2013 are excellent.  Unfortunately it's back to 2010 for me as it is gloomier than a funeral parlour.  There's a condition that some people suffer from called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), whereby during the Winter months they get quite depressed.  MS have now caused a condition, of which, judging by this thread, there are fellow sufferers: it is called ODD: Office Depressive Disorder.  It is initially caused by installing Office 2013 and is a progressive disorder as the will to live is sucked from you by the monochromatic dreariness leaving the sufferer in a state of torpor that makes a sloth look active.

End of verbose rant.

Seriously, sort it out MS.

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March 8th, 2013 10:51pm

Sarah, how can you say you are happy with all of the available themes but yet you still found this thread?
March 9th, 2013 3:01pm

Is it just me, or are the lack of any valid response for months by anyone involved in making this product a little disturbing to anyone else? I mean, the Office team apparently can't be bothered - not a single one of them - to respond to any of these posts on the official technet forums. As another poster pointed out there are tens of thousands of views and hundreds of postings on this specific topic, yet not one peep out of the Office team. Not a single member has bothered to post anything, even an apology or a "hey we're working on it, stay tuned!", on these forums. Nothing.

Is no one at Microsoft disturbed by this or is this just business as usual? Just curious if this is all part of the "new" Microsoft or something.

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March 12th, 2013 5:11pm

I imagine that this is the Office UI that the DPRK* would come up with except they would have added at least one additional colour; olive green. That would be an improvement over white, grey, and darker grey. 

Microsoft knows what is best for us whether we like it or not.

*Democratic People's Republic of Korea

March 13th, 2013 2:41am

The new Office 2013 UI is horrible and so is the Visual Studio 2012 UI...

At least with Visual Studio 2012 you can download some custom color themes that helps out a bit.

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March 13th, 2013 10:52am

I will definitely be recommended that our IT department does not roll out Office 2013 due to this horrible/negligent decision that led to this color scheme.  This will be nothing by complaint calls.  Sure the product works well but if you can't stand to look at it what is the use of having it.
March 18th, 2013 4:28pm

I agree with everybody that considers this new "improvement" as a HUGE PROBLEM!  I have sent my CTO a link to the Office Updates to look for himself along with several of the comments from this page.  WE WILL NOT migrate to Office 2013 anytime soon!!!! 

Shame on you Microsoft, did someone forget to run this customer testing before releasing this code?  Does this look good on a conference room projector and you forgot to run this on a real monitor?  I do not expect this crap work product from Microsoft. 

On the bright side, upper management has approved my project to spend some time looking at other software packages.  SmartDraw is on top of my list to replace Visio!!!!!!

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March 20th, 2013 6:42pm

Is it just me, or are the lack of any valid response for months by anyone involved in making this product a little disturbing to anyone else? I mean, the Office team apparently can't be bothered - not a single one of them - to respond to any of these posts on the official technet forums. As another poster pointed out there are tens of thousands of views and hundreds of postings on this specific topic, yet not one peep out of the Office team. Not a single member has bothered to post anything, even an apology or a "hey we're working on it, stay tuned!", on these forums. Nothing.

Is no one at Microsoft disturbed by this or is this just business as usual? Just curious if this is all part of the "new" Microsoft or something.

As they pointed out, it's by design.  There is nothing to fix.  Read my Skydrive post above, I'm sure that's part of the reason.

The fact that we don't like it is besides the point, however I still say the dark grey colour scheme has got bugs in it because the foreground yellows and greys are washed out when using it.

March 20th, 2013 9:43pm

I did the same thing. Tried it, liked it, but couldn't accept the lack of colors. Went back to 2010.
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March 22nd, 2013 7:35am

It seems that Microsoft took the award-winning team responsible the success of Windows ME and Windows Vista and put them in charge of UI design for Office 2013.

On the bright side, Office 2015 is going to seem like a huge leap forward!

March 28th, 2013 10:27pm

Open office or Libre; either of them look better.  Secondly, the "by design" assertion is thinly veiled attempt at disguising what really goin on; "We don't like you having control and we wont include a interface for you to change it.  We're not going to tell and anf there's NOTHING you do that's gunna make us!"

sigh.

-------------

Hi,

The theme of Office Professional Plus 2013 is by design, and check to see whether change the color of window borders taskbar can do any help.

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March 28th, 2013 11:12pm

I'm uninstalling Office 2013 and going back to Office 2010.  That they charge money for this downgrade in functionality that is called Office 2013 is insulting.  I'd have to poke my eyes out if I had to use Outlook 2013 every day.
March 29th, 2013 10:19pm

The white does give a headache. After an hour work in excel, my eyes could not take it any more and then I found the three lousy options. Dark grey is the best for me to work it, but it is a joke.  The functions of office is great (still prefer the old days of short cut keys and no ribbon bar), but the appearance looks like a poorly designed website.

Hopefully, someone will come out with a third party skins.

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April 1st, 2013 5:15am

I have used 2013 for many months now, and like CRM 2011 the scheme is very drab, but I can live with the limited colors - after all, its your product - your evolutinary bet. 
Elimination of some chrome is a welcomed change. 
It *is* very odd that you chose grayscales though.
Of primary annoyance to me are the faint cell & row border lines of views - especially in Outlook calendar.
It unnecessarily builds in a human stall in review of such panels.
And seemingly inconsistent with the new scheme goal, in Office you offer "Backgrounds" - albeit only for the top right window corner - that very effectively clutterize the minimize, close, restore icons.
For the record, I am almost angry you've removed the Categories icons from view grids.
So what less than 1% used them - just a few *million* folks.
So I have net 2 requests - offer cell/row border line darkening, and bring back Categories icons in views.
April 2nd, 2013 4:14pm

I've just installed Office 2013 and I agree that the themes suck!  Also, the ribbons are "blocky" and flat, and what's with the all caps?  Awful.  I shall be reverting to 2010 until MS get their act together.
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April 2nd, 2013 9:02pm

I was excited to install the new Office 2013 on my PC here at the office (I'm the Network Admin and need to test a few things before rolling it out to every company machine) and I was amazed at how smooth the upgrade from 2010 went. But that was it. The following is me narrating my first hands-on use of Office 2013:

Alright! The upgrade is finished! Wow that was fast!

OK, time to open Outlook to make sure I didn't get anything important while I was installing the new version.

Ahh! My EYES! I need to change this immediately. (Navigates through the menu and finds themes)

OK, cool! I can select, "White" "Light Grey", or "Dark Grey" (Clicks Dark Grey)

(Clicks OK)....Umm..... Maybe I didn't actually change it to Dark Grey - no wait - the tiny bar across the bottom of Outlook turned Dark Grey..... hmm..... maybe I'm missing something.

(Waste's the rest of the work day searching through Outlook preferences and Google for a way to change the theme)

I mean seriously, is it really that difficult Microsoft? REALLY? I can't even imagine forcing all the employees to undergo such intense eye strain ALL day long! My eyes were hurting after only a couple minutes!

And since everything is opaque with absolutely no color gradation, it should be extremely simple to let users bring up a color palette and select their own colors!!! I will wait a little longer to see if MS releases an update with more themes. But I am extremely hesitant to upgrade any other PC to Office 2013 for THIS SOLE REASON! FIX IT! Otherwise I'm uninstalling, and going back to 2010 before I go blind and, therefore, lose my job at the same time! Even then, at least I wouldn't have to see this garbage all day!

April 3rd, 2013 10:19pm

I had to show up and post. 

Here is why white is the WORST color ever. Ok so I doubt anyone at the design team who made office gets how LCDs work, but essentially they are like the Lights in most offices.  A big, bright, white light, a deffuser in front of it, and then the LCD panel. 

Well, making office white essentially makes me stare at a light bulb all day. My eyes want to scream after 30 minutes of use. 

Back in the day I loved how Microsoft (2000-XP) spent time and money researching what users wanted, how to implement them with the most approval of users, because we buy and use your products. That seems to have gone out of the window. 

Outlook 2013 should look like Sublime2's editor. Dark dark grey is the base color, colors highlight things we care about like unread mail. White is awful!!

I switched everything to the darkest theme i could, but its still too bright.

Windows has separate themes that clash.

Visual Studio has totally different themes that also clash, because they stuff old and new theming ideas into one app making it look like 1995 attacked 2013.

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April 6th, 2013 8:17pm

It is so terribly ugly. It is killing my eyes, every time I look at it my eyes start to hurt even more. I normally do not post at this forums, but now I feel like I do not have a choice. How can this apply to health measurements if someone my young age can't even stand it? 

Office 2007 and 2010 were so full of colours, now we have to be satisfied with white, white, even more white and occasionally some black. The designers of this mess should be fired at once. 

Further I totally agree with the above comments. Microsoft programmers really must be blind if they don't notice the enormous variety of complains about the interface. 

Until this issue is solved, I will return to Office 2010. It'll make me feel less depressed!

April 7th, 2013 5:28pm

I installed office 2013 and have been using Outlook for the last 2 days. This colour is absolutely hideous and causes me huge amounts of eye strain. Being so plain it also makes things hard to focus on where colour would help this. Honestly cant understand what imbeciles would produce something so unbelieavably bad and whoever designed and approved this scheme should be fired. I will be rolling back to 2010 as well as 2013 is just unusable as is, and will not be rolling out any 2013 Office to my network until it is fixed. Can see this becoming a problematic OHS issue.
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April 9th, 2013 8:29am

Yes.  It is a mess.  Not sure why you would go backward from plenty of choice to 3 choices and no ability to mod.  

April 12th, 2013 8:42am

Dude, you clearly have not spent five minutes using the new office. All of the "removed" features are there in better form. Clip art just got a whole lot easier with "Online Pictures" and who's sharing e-mail attachments these days? Hey, welcome to the cloud, baby! Yeah, I'm gonna miss picture manager, like the plague. We use Photo Gallery.

This entire thread should be closed and placed in a time capsule to be read a year or two from now. The world will be using Office 2013 and we'll all have a good laugh.

By the way, after a few weeks of use all of my users--ALL OF THEM--want Office 2013 for their home as well.


Nice ad. Anyway the company I work for cannot use the "cloud" due to NDA's.
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April 12th, 2013 7:34pm

The functionality of the SW is not in question. The look and working comfort however is a disaster. The look and feel looks and feels like it was "designed" by an 8 year old with a single font set of letraset.

If I had seen it before buying it, I would have stayed with MSO 2010.

April 14th, 2013 5:18pm

The theme of Office Professional Plus 2013 is by design

Ah! The typical response from every single MSFT department. Which translates to: "lalalala, we're not listening". Our wallets are, and they don't like what they're hearing nor seeing.
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April 15th, 2013 7:16pm

For the love of God... I am about to have a seizure by looking at MS Office 2013. It should be illegal. It looks like a "cheap app" not a software program. 
April 26th, 2013 9:41am

Why on earth has Microsoft NOT given users the ability to customise Office 2013?

I have installed it as part of Office 365 (cheapest way to get Office pro) and am astonished. The big issue is usability - the 2010 coloured ribbon bar, etc, made items and areas of the window much more distinguishable - it now takes longer to idenbtify the required command. So, Office 2013 is a backwards step in usability. How could they do this, after all their testing? Who's in charge, and how can we get them sacked?

The other issue is aesthetics. Both Windows 8 (which I installed as an upgrade as Vista, and then bought a new copy of Windows 7 and upgraded from Windows 8 to a useable system) and office 2013 are plain ugly.

There is a science of aesthetics, and no-one with decision authority at Microsoft understands it.

Humans DON'T like straight lines and sharp corners. They don't like plain slabs of colour. They like seeing varying detail at different levels of magnification. This is NOT just opinion - it is established by multiple scientific studies.

All the windozes since Windows 3 have been getting more and more attractive by these criteria - Aero was really good.

Now Microsoft has forced interfaces on us that are not as attractive to humans - in a scientifically objective sense.

I think the real reason most people dislike Windows 8 and Office 2013 is that they are just plain ugly - and facing an ugly screen all day is just plain awful.

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April 28th, 2013 2:33am

Whose design?  Did you perform any usability testing?

BTW - the Edsel was also created by d

April 30th, 2013 3:52am

No.  Because that has a global effect.  

Why has there been no further response  to this conversation from the Moderator since 10/29/12?  This obviously remains a big problem.  Certainly Microsoft engineers have the capability to fix this. Can you provide a straight answer as to why the decision was made to look like this?  More importantly, why is it not being fixed?  Has Microsoft stopped listening to its cust

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April 30th, 2013 3:55am

It's all to do with making it as simple as possible, so that Web Apps looks the same and because of the roaming feature built that works with Skydrive, so that when your profile is downloaded to x crappy hotel computer from the cloud it doesn't overwhelm it.  Or using Office 365 with web browser, etc.  Hearing this third hand.  I'm sure there must be a blog somewhere, can't find it though.

As I've said various times above, there is an actual bug in the dark grey colour scheme, I'd like to know when and if that is going to be addressed.

April 30th, 2013 6:08pm

It's all to do with making it as simple as possible, so that Web Apps looks the same and because of the roaming feature built that works with Skydrive, so that when your profile is downloaded to x crappy hotel computer from the cloud it doesn't overwhelm it.


Still give me the option to set it to a normal PC user friendly color scheme.
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May 6th, 2013 10:51pm

I totally agree. This UI is one of the worst I've seen. Ergonomically its incredibly difficult to distinguish important items from others and is completely flat making everything look the same. The fact that there is no bold on new emails is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not normally so strongly opinioned but I really, really, REALLY dislike it hugely. Not user-friendly at all.

I've been trying to go back to using Outlook 2010 but haven't figured out how to migrate my profile back yet - seems the manual setup capability has disappeared as well.

Microsoft, I hope you take on board the comments about the new Look & Feel. At least allow users the ability to return to the UI that has more depth, contrast and clarity. Whoever signed off on this UI should be sent to sit on the naughty chair for a long while - or get another job! Crazy.

May 8th, 2013 1:07pm

I have tried twice to switch to 2013. I went back to 2010. I know custom themes can be done. Microsoft had the same issues and backlash with Visual Studio 2012. They have since released updates that provide a theme switcher and customizer. 

They need to get with it. I used to be hardcore Microsoft, .NET developer. With the huge disappointment that is Windows 8, Office 2013 and the metro styling beginning to appear on all products, I'm finding hard to not switch to a MAC.

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May 9th, 2013 3:07pm

By Design?  Was that a Microsoft employee who answered that way?  If so, I'm not impressed.  That's about the least customer friendly response you could have possibly come up with.  I, like the original poster, am having real problems with eye strain.  It's very hard to read Outlook in particular.

May 10th, 2013 10:06pm

Just went through yesterday to try out this "upgrade" before we roll it out.

Much like windows 8, if I roll out this software in an environment with a number of graphic designers, I will probably be lynched.

Microsoft UI's used to have depth, separation, gave your eyes a rest by defining borders. Not this one, they took a white slab and tossed text on it. Ridiculous.

MS, you can give us all these commercials about how we can delete a group of emails, and how you have a tablet with a keyboard, but that does not make up for a poor design choice.

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May 17th, 2013 4:18pm

I have been working with MS products since Microsoft started.  This is by far the most pathetic and sad example of a program release from them that I have seen (and they have had some real winners (not)).  Besides the awful colors it has many other issues, such as connectivity, etc.

They are trying to force the masses to the "cloud" because it is much more profitable for them.

We will all have to abandon Microsoft soon.  I regret rolling this out to my company.  I'd like my money back Bill. :) 

I think the color issue will have to be addressed by the "public" community.  The missing functionality will more than likely be addressed by one of MS' competitors in the form of new apps we can jump to.

I guess it really is pointless to vent here - people have been complaining about the color since day one and all we get from "moderators" (laughable) is that this is by design.  I think we don't care if by design or not, we would like this addressed.

My 2 MCSE cents.

May 20th, 2013 10:13pm

I must add my displeasure with the Office 2013 color scheme.  At the very least, you think it would work with Windows 8's color pallet changing feature.  To me that is not the most egregious fault.  The biggest problem I have with the new office suite, and Outlook in particular is that it is not considered a metro app, and there is no options to show updates on lock screen.  I have twitter, weather, skype, and even the built in mail app can show updates.  I guess the Office team leader just didn't see the need to work with Windows 8 at all.

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May 21st, 2013 6:52am

I guess you need to consider the direction all this technology is going in as well.

Most vendors are making their apps cloud based, as it's not really that efficient to stream many different colours. The whole Office 2013 / Windows 8 interface appears to have been optimised to be bandwith efficient.

I agree, there could be some better colour combinations, but then your asking developers to do aesthetics.

Maybe MSFT should do the code and Apple could do the UI....

And if you still think it looks bad, run up Solaris up in a VM, go look at IT'S gui, then come back and complain...


May 22nd, 2013 12:56pm

I've solved the M$ 2013 "Bright White" problem!  Simply un-install this disaster, Mourn the loss of the money you paid for it, and Reinstall 2010. Viola!
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May 23rd, 2013 1:38am

The whole Office 2013 / Windows 8 interface appears to have been optimised to be bandwith efficient.
But it's not, that's the laugh, Office 2013 is really slow when being used through remote desktop.  Obviously if you use web apps then that is quite quick and they look the same due to the simple colour scheme, but Windows 8 isn't bandwidth efficient either, far from it, what with all the animations in the packaged apps on the Start screen.
May 23rd, 2013 6:29pm

I'm fine with the dark gray, but for the love of god, give me a solution that allows me to set this as default for all new installs, seriously, how hard can it be!

PS, this is just a rant, not a serious question. But Microsoft please...

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May 28th, 2013 8:44am

For me it isn't the color scheme as much as how flat it looks, it needs some depth, especially around the tabs for the ribbon bar, and how the title bar no longer has a focus color.

The new style used in Office 2013 (and regrettably in pretty much everything coming out of Microsoft nowadays including websites and developer tools) is the one reason I'm glad about Office365 being a subscription program - it means I don't have to pay the full price for Office 2013 before experiencing how terrible it looks!


May 29th, 2013 12:47am

This is the worse version ever...I was using Office 2007 and jumped to 2013 and would go back if I could! how hard is it to keep it as it was .. add some color please..after 3 hrs my boss asked me to remove it.. I prefer using my Word Perfect and Lotus.. talk about going back in time.. why not just give us Win 3.11  Seriously Microsoft.. listen to those who use this.. I was never a fan of office products and will not think twice about removing office 2013 from all my users and keeping whatever version they currently have...talking about the twilight zone!

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May 29th, 2013 10:32pm

I agree that the UI for Office 2013 is terrible.  When I'm in Office 2013 Calendar, everything is a monochromatic tint of blue.  Nothing stands out.

Finding "Today" is hard.  I would want to set the color for Today in a complementary color.  Also, I'd like to change the background color from bright white to a pale, yellow or some unsaturated tint.  Everything is harder to read and find because of the monochromatic theme.

Also, for the vision impaired, the light greys and low contrast that is present everywhere is just a killer. Is Microsoft intentionally trying to ignore the needs of users who have poorer vision?  Hue contrast as well as brightness contrasts are dearly needed.

A solution to this would be to allow customers to apply whatever appearances they want for the individual UI components that make up the application.

June 4th, 2013 5:19pm

I concur that the Office themes do not have high enough contrast for many users.  The darker gray in Office 2010 was more pragmatic and a good sample of a high contrast design.  Other colors could be used, but they should make program elements stand out against each other

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June 7th, 2013 3:39pm

Yes, this is like going back to 95. I was so happy when they released XP with little bit rounded and shaded edges and at least some colors which do not jump right to your eyes and make you maniac.  And now with all this great new technology they're going back to Technicolor time with W8 and to no color time with Office. I guess next step is monochrome sound too ;-) and 8-bit color... This whole windows appearance is like finish design today. Square, flat and unspeakable colors  

And yes, it is hard to your eyes if you stare it all day long. I work in school for visually impaired children and does anyone think that poor sighted people can see anything on screen.  

But who should enjoy working, not with new Office anyway :-(((

June 12th, 2013 9:48am

I have to agree with most of the replies. Office 2013 in our 400 client plus environ WILL NOT be deployed. The over whelming majority of our IT department has given it a thumbs down as well, again, due to the visual interface. The Classic view needs to be introduced by update or provisions made for the next version. This product goes in the hall of shame with ME and Vista.
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June 14th, 2013 11:46pm

Agreed. I really don't care about the colors all that much (one color would be nice... the monochromatic thing is so stupid).

I need the window to have transparency, so I can see other windows flashing behind it if I need to. I am so used to having that with Windows 7 and Office 2010 and I love it. No matter what I do I cannot find a way to get it to have the same transparency that my Windows 7 UI does. 

June 19th, 2013 5:55pm

 

Change Office 2013 Color Scheme (In Windows 7)

To change the background color in office 2013 follow these steps:  Right click on your desktop, Select Personalize,  Select Window color at bottom of screen, Select Advanced Appearance settings.  Left click on the window text picture and select the Color 1 drop down box.  Select Other then move the crosshair to the color you require and press OK twice to exit.  Then save changes.  All office program background colors will have changed.

You can also select a color box to change the color of your windows borders which adds a nicer effect to the overall look.

In Outlook, you can also R-Click on a message and choose Color.

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June 21st, 2013 1:47am

You fools.  Microsoft was very clever in making everything white and grey scale.  Don't you understand that they are just looking after the consumers needs when they do this?  There are literally billions of users who are forced to use grey-scale monitors around the world and if Microsoft didn't make a product grey-scale, what would all those users do?  This way, it's an even playing field, everyone gets grey scale and all those end-users with grey-scale monitors are no longer missing out on having an awesome interface with actual colour.  

Well done, Microsoft, well done!
June 27th, 2013 6:05am

It's 2:50am in the morning and I decided to upgrade to Office 2013 as I'm doing some database work in Excel.

What the HELL have they done to the design? I'm not going to deny, I was slightly excited while it was downloading, but once I opened Excel... I was shocked.

So I googled how to change the design and this page came up, I guess everyone else is unhappy and there is nothing that can be done.

Luckily this was a free trial, I can confidently say I will not be subscribing / updating to Office 2013. There is no way I would be able to motivate myself to use Excel for long periods of time looking the way it does.

Delete.

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June 28th, 2013 4:55am

Wow, I can't believe the negativity in this thread! I did initially find Office 2013 rather bland when I first used it but quickly got used to the crisp clean look. I never saw the look as "bad" & actually when I see Office 2010 now it looks kind of "cartoonish".

I suspect by the comments here that most users never fine tune their monitors as I have never regarded the look as overly harsh just rather clinical. I quickly got used to it am I'm just so impressed by the subtle improvements whilst not obvious with a little effort it is in fact the best ever.

Just my thoughts & observation, obviously I am alone on this one. This whole thread comes as somewhat of a shock to me, all I can suggest is try the colour/contrast settings on your monitor!

July 1st, 2013 12:35pm

I have been begging for a white on black theme in every version of Office since Office 97. White on black is so sleek and easy to read. Kindle and any other e-reader I know of has that option.

In windows 7 or windows 8 you can switch your windows theme to High Contrast 1, High Contrast 2, or High Contrast Black. I use the last one.

Unfortunately, not all programs look good with this theme. Google Chrome doesn't. But if you have to read an office document, switch the theme then when you are done, switch back. It is not ideal. It is obnoxious, but at least your eyes won't bleed.

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July 2nd, 2013 11:12pm

You start Windows 8...and see all the crazy colors. Wow...there are colors EVERYWHERE....it's like Teletubbies land. Then, you launch the Excel 2013 app...and all the life is instantly sucked right out of Windows 8. You can feel it in your bones. The Office apps are a barren, Boot Hill-esque, cold wasteland....with grey and white tumbleweeds and gravestones. Then, you go back into Metro...and WHAM...it's the Skittles rainbow monster voraciously attacking everything in sight. Nom nom nom nom. Big blocks of color coming at you....it's crazy like...wow man...what a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas trip crazy! You are flying sky high with the bats and stingrays. Life is groovy. You then launch Outlook 2013 and WHAM...there you are...slammed down to the ground...back in Frankenweenie land ready to raise some dead animals or something.

How hard would it be to add a color option to Office 2013? Would it literally...take all of 10 minutes to code? Is there a color option coming soon? Like...in the next few weeks soon? If this is Microsoft's new schtick...I'll even accept a "Dripping Blood Red" or "Burnt Corpse Greenish Brown"  theme option at this point....I'm so color depraved. Why isn't there any color in the number one Microsoft cash cow? Did vampires develop it? Did Trent Reznor manage the project? Is Office 2013 an homage to Boris Karloff? What's up?

Actually...I don't care what's up...I just want to know how to fix it. Really, there is no way to fix it? Really?

hahahaha this is the best comment I've ever read regarding UIs in any forum whatsoever. you should be in the field of creative/humorous writing!
July 4th, 2013 2:16pm

REALLY ? CONCRETELY ?

Are YOU SURE OF WHAT YOU RE SAYING OR JUST YOUR BOSS PASSED THE Q&A TO WRITE IT ?

I think firmly that making a theme or a color change shouldn't cost COST A LOT TO THE BILLIONAIRE MICROSOFT .

Clearly the GUI has been programmed by a colourblind Pakistani guy .

I am belonging to a family of professional photographer since 1882 ... Appointed by King of Italy (my grand father) and I NEVER SAW SUCH A BLIND MEN RESULTS .

Just an arrogant  monopolistic Company as it was IBM 30 years ago can behave in such a way = avoiding to listen to customers ... Microsoft will end as NOKIA = overwhelmed by ANDROID / LINUX / FIREFOX apps. and O.S.s

My dear be careful your job is under threath because Inians and Pakistani are cheaper than you and as your manager says ... you are swappable with someone cheaper

PhD in Economics - Ezio Lucenti - Venezia - Italy

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July 4th, 2013 3:01pm

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