I have just started using MS 2013 and have noticed some annoying shortcomings with this version.

1. One cannot now preview MS Word documents from the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer.  This is most inconvenient and wastes a considerable amount time.  Every document has to be opened to check the content, whereas in MS 2007 one could preview .xls, .xlsx, .doc and .docx files without having to open up MS Word/Excel.  However,.pdf files can be still be  previewed. 

2. Documents downloaded from the Internet cannot be consecutively saved to another folder, as MS Office 2013 repeatedly defaults to the Downloads folder.  I know one can put a shortcut in the default folder, but that is not the point; if one is downloading large amounts of files, the position of the shortcut folder starts to disappear as more files are added to the folder.  This means that you eventually have to scroll down the latest files to find the shortcut.

3. The limited choice of background colour schemes challenges those with failing or ageing eyesight.  Surely it would not have been too difficult to have added a greater range of background colours to the available themes?

I am hoping that subsequent updates will resolve these issues.

1) I'm using Office 2013 on Windows 8.1. If I turn on the Preview Pane, I can preview Word documents and Excel workbooks without problems.

2) Which browser are you using? In Internet Explorer, you can click the arrow on the right hand side of the Save button and select Save As from the dropdown menu.

3) Microsoft won't change this in Office 2013 anymore, but Office 2016 (due to be released later this year) will have a theme with a dark background.