Change the appearance of Office programs

The appearance of the Ribbon, which is part of the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, in the 2007 Microsoft

Office system follows the Office color scheme and the toolbars, buttons, menus, and dialog boxes in Microsoft

Office follow the Microsoft Windows desktop theme settings on your computer. You can change the default Office

color scheme and Windows desktop theme to customize the appearance of your Office programs.

What do you want to do?

Change the Office color scheme

Change the Windows desktop theme

Change the Office color scheme

You can customize the appearance of the Office Fluent Ribbon in Microsoft Office Access 2007, Microsoft Office

Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, or Microsoft Office Word 2007 by

selecting one of the available color schemes.

NOTES

Blue is the default color scheme in all 2007 Office release programs that support this option.

When you change the color scheme in one of the 2007 Office release programs listed below, it changes

for all of those programs.

This feature is not available in Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, Microsoft Office OneNote 2007,

Microsoft Office Project 2007, Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 or Microsoft Office Visio 2007.

Which 2007 Microsoft Office system program are you using?

Access

Excel

Outlook

PowerPoint

Word
Access

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Access Options.

2. Click Popular, and then click the Color scheme that you want.

Top of Page

Excel

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Excel Options.

2. Click Popular, and then click the Color scheme that you want.

Top of Page

Outlook

1. In an open item, click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Editor Options.

2. Click Popular, and then click the Color scheme that you want.

Top of Page

PowerPoint

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click PowerPoint Options.

2. Click Popular, and then click the Color scheme that you want.

Top of Page

Word

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.

2. Click Popular, and then click the Color scheme that you want.

Top of Page

Change the Windows desktop theme

A Microsoft Windows theme determines the overall appearance of the user interface, except for the Ribbon or

Menu bar, by providing a predefined set of icons, fonts, colors, mouse pointers, sounds, background pictures,

and screen savers. You can apply any of the themes that are included with Windows, and you can customize an

existing theme by changing its settings after the theme is applied.

Which operating system are you using?

Windows Vista

Windows XP

Windows Vista

1. Click the Start button , and then click Control Panel.

2. In Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, and then click Change the Theme.

3. In the Theme Settings dialog box, select the theme you want.

TIP You can further enhance the look of the Windows and Office user interface by customizing the

color scheme. In Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, and then click Customize

colors.

Top of Page

Microsoft Windows XP
1. On the Start menu, click Control Panel.

2. In Control Panel, click Appearance and Themes, and then click Change the computer's theme.

3. In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab.

4. In the Windows and buttons list, click the style that you want.

5. In the Color scheme list, click the color scheme you want.