I was waiting for the new office to be released. Couldn't wait to start using it; BUT THE COLOR themes suck. Don't like to work with these white, grey or dark grey themes. I feel like reversing to Office 2010. I will not recommend the new office until we get decent colored theme choices OR a way to design a theme ourselves.

What a disappointment!

Hi All,

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 seen.     

Hi All,

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 seen.     

Since Microsoft change the themes like this, there must be some people like it, such as me! I think it gives a clean look to me.

Thank god I dont work with Outlook that much, the colors are just awful. Im so close to going back to 2010 but do hope new themes will be released soon.

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.

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

100% agreement. The new look and feel is just aweful. This is a real shame because the Office 2010 UI was very well designed. The new white look makes it difficult to distinguish between menus and content. Unread e-mails in Outlook are shown in pale blue making them indistinguishable from read e-mails. How on Earth did this get by Microsoft's usability teams?

We will not be deploying Office 2013 across our organisation until the UI is fixed.

I just installed 2013 and one of the very first things was to get the old UI back!

Hesitate to go back to 2010 though, but definitely agree - the UI is a big disappointment. Hope one day Microsoft will offer an option to get the same colorset as with 2010.

As for the unread mail, a workaround may be  to go into View, View Settings, Conditional formatting, select unread mail, select font type?

Change color / bold ...

=

Bought a new machine this past weekend and, with 4 active computers in the house (3 PC/1Mac) bit the bullet and went whole hog with Office 365. Loaded up Office 2013 and immediately thought something was wrong with the computer color scheme. Did I get a faulty machine? After all, I thought, Office 2013 can't be this bad. Tried multiple changes in Control Panel. To no avail. Just as I was getting pissed about having to return a new machine to Best Buy the thought occured to me to check the forums for the new machine. Nothing negative. Then Googled "Office 2013 Themes" and, Whoa Nellie! Complaints and bad reviews came flying off Google from every thread. From Beta testing to present day. WTF was Microsoft thinking? This is almost as bad as the monochromatic days of MS-DOS!! In an era of improved graphics, Hi-Def resolution, CPU turbo-boosting, SSD Caching and huge memory Microsoft gives us...vomitus! Whitewash dreck that will no doubt spawn litigation sometime soon for its detrimental effect on the optic nerve! I'm now rethinking Office 365 and headed back to 2010. Last thing I need is eye fatigue, or worse, blindness from 2013 overexposure. Word to Microsoft: you know how warts and blemishes become much more revealing in Hi-Def? Same thing applies to shi**y color themes too! C'mon, get real. And get back to us when Office 2013 is ready for prime time. I smell a refund!

I migrated from Office 2003 to Office 2013 yesterday.  Big mistake.  Out of the box, the theme is set to "white".  Everything is white.  I couldn't believe how white everything was.

After a few hours of squinting, I had a bad headache (the first time in years I've had severe eye strain).  I searched around and discovered that 2013 also has a "dark grey" theme.  That's better, I thought.  But it's not dark grey at all.  It's only a very light grey.

In other respects, I quite liked the UI in Office 2013 - but its ghastly lack of contrast makes it impossible to use.  With great regret, and being concerned for my eyesight, I had to uninstall Office 2013 and revert to Office 2003 (which, although a little dated now. has a wonderful UI).

How I wish I'd bought Office 2010 instead of Office 2013.  I suppose there must be method in Microsoft's madness but the Office suite is hardly new.  Why destroy its usability all of a sudden?

I seriously question what the Microsoft team had in mind . . .

The answer to your question can be found in the Day of the Triffids.  The world was blinded after looking at a meteor shower.  The triffids then tried to take over.

Will Microsoft stop at nothing?

I agree. It is awful. I bought two copies of Office 365 for my supply kit for customers but I seriously doubt they are going to be happy if they buy it. If it didn't cost more to buy Office 2010 at the moment I would just stock up on a dozen copies of that; I may still do it as this version is SO ugly. It's bland and flat, very 2D.

3 themes? Were the Office team on crack or something? Personally I think they just couldn't be bothered. Either that or they're trying to make it look as bland and unappealing as possible so  people stick to using the Start UI. Way to promote your product you muppets.

Googled themes, because i was astonshied about this attorley disgusting new theme. I came here to found out i was stuck with it. Fortunately i bought a HUP office, downgrading without hesathating.

Worst 13 bucks i've spend!

The theme feels like you're a patient in a particularly depressing mental institution.

Honestly, how long does it take to offer a greater range of colours ? Is Microsoft on some sadistic trip with Office 2013?

I would like to keep this issue alive. I am rolling Office 2013 out to a small company and every person I have installed this for so far has asked how to change the colors. The dark grey seems to be the most popular and usable option, but most would like the black or at least more option. Microsoft should do a simple internet search on this issue and see exactly how many people are complaining out this. Not all users of the product choose to post here.

Wish we could do the same in our computer labs but circumstances require us to upgrade to Office 2013 as 2013 will be the only version available for purchase on new computers and is the version used in textbooks unless students themselves decide to ditch 2013 and reinstall their copy of 2010 if they have one.

Glad we have a Work-at-Home agreement because I would readily keep 2010.