M365 Word - Any way to change selected text color?

[HCHTech]

Gotta love these oddball questions. I have a jeweler as a customer, and on one of his machines, he is complaining that the selection color in Word is doesn't have enough contrast, so it makes the selected text difficult to read. This is likely an effect of his particular monitor, but he reports that he has experimented with all of the changeable screen options the monitor offers, but none have an effect on this that is positive without screwing up normal viewing. Note that the regular Windows selection color and contrast are perfectly fine.

He does jewelry design so has some pretty fancy equipment for that. I don't have the specific monitor make and model yet, but I know it was expensive.

In the pre-Win10 days, you could change all manor of default color settings for various things, but it appears from my research that you no longer get this range of control in Windows 10.

I note on my own machine that the default Windows selection color appears to be blue:



In Word 2019, though, the selection color is grey.



You can see from these images that there is plenty of contrast on my machine. I'm thinking his only real option is to replace his (expensive) monitor.

Anyone smarter than me found a registry item for the selection color in Word?

 

[Tech Savvy]

Have you tried the setting for windows as a whole and seeing if M365 apps respect it?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors\

Highlight - I believe is the background color and
HighlightText - is the text color


There might be a GUI way to access it, but I forget. Probably in appearance somewhere.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Markverhyden]

Type in high contrast in the search bar and it'll point to the setting in Ease of Access in Settings. On my laptop, 10 Pro 1909, it was off by default. Turning it on changes everything so you'll have to deal with that. When you apply it'll prompt you for a new profile name.

 

[mikeroq]

They removed the Color settings like Windows 7 and previous had but they are still in the registry.

Here is a useful tool to change all those easily:
https://www.wintools.info/index.php/classic-color-panel

Unfortunately, Office does not seem to respect the settings and uses its own colors.

 

[Markverhyden]

They removed the Color settings like Windows 7 and previous had but they are still in the registry.

Here is a useful tool to change all those easily:
https://www.wintools.info/index.php/classic-color-panel

Unfortunately, Office does not seem to respect the settings and uses its own colors.

I can confirm that as well. When I checked the steps above I only tested it in Notepad. Just now, when I went to word it did not change the selected text color.

 

[Sky-Knight]

This is all I'm aware of: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...f-office-63e65e1c-08d4-4dea-820e-335f54672310

Beware, registry changes, or color changes often require a log out and back in again to stick.

 

[britechguy]

See: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...6/30093f23-fa48-4852-a269-bbed2a03f3f2?auth=1

or https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18641033/custom-rgb-color-value-for-highlighted-text#18641121

or some of the other results of this search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=MS-Word+selection+highlight+color

 

[mikeroq]

See: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...6/30093f23-fa48-4852-a269-bbed2a03f3f2?auth=1

or https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18641033/custom-rgb-color-value-for-highlighted-text#18641121

or some of the other results of this search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=MS-Word+selection+highlight+color

That is for highlighted text not actual selection of text. OP is looking for when you select text:

 

[HCHTech]

Thanks for the replies. You can change the default HIGHLIGHT color with a registry change, but that isn't what my guy is looking for. It's the selection color, and that, it appears is not changeable. I don't know how this fits into his workflow, but apparently it does.

As noted, Word (and probably other office apps) do not respect the Windows settings on this, so the change would have to be a setting within office, which does not appear to exist. I don't plan on spending any additional time on this - I don't think this was something that changed for him overnight. For all I know his monitor is 8 years old and starting to fail. I'll have another discussion with him tomorrow and will likely recommend a new monitor. I'm sure he can afford it.

 

[britechguy]

Then try the results from: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=change+selection+color+in+ms+word

The question has been asked by many, and many times. There's got to be a solution, I just picked the wrong search terms.

 

[britechguy]

I also forgot to mention that it may be something that can be accomplished with Winaero Tweaker.

I've used that utility many times to get at settings that used to be readily accessible under earlier versions of Windows, but have been pulled in later ones. The underlying infrastructure still exists, but Windows giving you direct control over it does not.

 

[britechguy]

I still don't have a definitive answer, but I did want post the link to a page that at least has given a tantalizing lead: http://www.pjc.me.uk/w10-theme/index.html. The bit that I found most interesting was this:

In Windows 10, the registry keys in My Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors are disregarded by the operating system. They are still there, presumably for compatibility with old programs, but their values are not observed by Windows 10. That is why the Advanced Appearance dialog has been taken away; these registry values are now ignored so there is no reason for the dialog to exist.

Instead, a theme file is read to obtain the necessary settings. The advantage of a theme file is that it is readily sharable. So a theme designer can compose new colours for the Windows 10 desktop and the user can install them via "Get more themes online" without having to import registry values. The disadvantage is taking away the user's ability to customise all of their Windows desktop colours.

One of the things I do, a lot, is working with blind and visually impaired individuals who are trying to (re)learn how to use the computer. Issues of selection range indication don't matter much if you can't see at all, but can be critical if you are a low-vision individual. On the above noted page is offered a ZIP file with a theme that they claim will change the selection range background to blue rather than light gray. I have written asking what they used as their theme editing software, and what theme element it is that gets tweaked to change the selection range background color. I'll report back if I get a definitive answer.

So far there is nothing I've found that gives a clear indication that this can be done since the advent of Windows 8, which is where the longstanding settings that allowed the end user to tweak this disappeared.

 

[britechguy]

I got a very prompt response from Phil Jones, the owner of the previously noted website:
-----
Here's an example of the theme in use. The file "Ron.theme" is a text
file edited using plain old Notepad.

Place the file "Ron.theme" in the correct folder location. In this
example, the username is "user" so the folder location is:

C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes

Don't see AppData? Click the View tab, then make sure Hidden Items is
ticked.

To open the theme for editing, right-click "Ron.theme", point to Open
with, click Notepad. Don't see Notepad? Right-click "Ron.theme" again,
point to Open with, click Choose default program..., then you should
find Notepad in the list.

In the text file, look for:

[Control Panel\Colors]
Background=58 110 165
Hilight=8 34 108
HilightText=255 255 255

The "Hilight" colour is defined in Red Green Blue values so dark blue is
8 34 108. "HilightText" means the colour of the text within the
selection and white is 255 255 255.

Save the change using Notepad, apply the theme and you should find that
it works.

 

[Markverhyden]

I got a very prompt response from Phil Jones, the owner of the previously noted website:
-----
Here's an example of the theme in use. The file "Ron.theme" is a text
file edited using plain old Notepad.

Place the file "Ron.theme" in the correct folder location. In this
example, the username is "user" so the folder location is:

C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes

Don't see AppData? Click the View tab, then make sure Hidden Items is
ticked.

To open the theme for editing, right-click "Ron.theme", point to Open
with, click Notepad. Don't see Notepad? Right-click "Ron.theme" again,
point to Open with, click Choose default program..., then you should
find Notepad in the list.

In the text file, look for:

[Control Panel\Colors]
Background=58 110 165
Hilight=8 34 108
HilightText=255 255 255

The "Hilight" colour is defined in Red Green Blue values so dark blue is
8 34 108. "HilightText" means the colour of the text within the
selection and white is 255 255 255.

Save the change using Notepad, apply the theme and you should find that
it works.

Tried it. Didn't work using the steps described. But I'll see if I can figure out where the default theme file is and see if adding those lines make a difference.

 

[britechguy]

It's working for me, but NOT in MS-Word, so I intend to write back again. I tweaked a theme I'd downloaded. The funny thing is, even after I saved that theme under a name of my choosing, then restarted the machine, it didn't work immediately. I had to go back into Windows 10 Theme settings and choose the custom theme I'd saved, again, and then it did.

The lines I placed in that theme file, and in the .theme file, after the [Control Panel\Desktop] section and before the [VisualStyles] section:

[Control Panel\Colors]
Background=58 110 165
Hilight=255 153 255
HilightText=255 255 255

And here's a screen shot of a selection in notepad:



and in the Save dialog



That shade is already changed, but I wanted something really obvious for testing.

It's pretty clear that MS-Word probably uses some registry value, but which one?

Addendum: I have also started a new topic on answers.microsoft.com, not that I have much hope that a real answer will be forthcoming, but if anyone wants to monitor it:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-a150-4fa5-9718-b745a27e14a2?tm=1598740741558

 

[Markverhyden]

It's working for me, but NOT in MS-Word, so I intend to write back again. I tweaked a theme I'd downloaded. The funny thing is, even after I saved that theme under a name of my choosing, then restarted the machine, it didn't work immediately. I had to go back into Windows 10 Theme settings and choose the custom theme I'd saved, again, and then it did.

The lines I placed in that theme file, and in the .theme file, after the [Control Panel\Desktop] section and before the [VisualStyles] section:

[Control Panel\Colors]
Background=58 110 165
Hilight=255 153 255
HilightText=255 255 255

And here's a screen shot of a selection in notepad:

View attachment 12063

and in the Save dialog

View attachment 12064

That shade is already changed, but I wanted something really obvious for testing.

It's pretty clear that MS-Word probably uses some registry value, but which one?

Addendum: I have also started a new topic on answers.microsoft.com, not that I have much hope that a real answer will be forthcoming, but if anyone wants to monitor it:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-a150-4fa5-9718-b745a27e14a2?tm=1598740741558

I should have been clearer in my earlier post. I meant it didn't work in Word. Did something more. I turned on high contrast mode using a test profile. I did notice in high contrast the Word selected text color is now black, which is RGB 0, 0, 0. So I did a search and replace in the .theme on that for everything that was 0, 0, 0 to something in the blue range. It did not change the selected text color in word, remained black. So Office has to be picking up a color change from somewhere.

 

[g8orade]

I found a partial answer to this question today at the link below. You have to add a registry key for each Office application you want affected, and it changes it from gray to black, no other options. Idk if this will work for Office 365.

Selected text/selected items color change

social.technet.microsoft.com

I'm on Windows 10 Pro running Office Pro 2016

I work with several sight impaired persons and non-granular control like this illustrates continues to frustrate.