Substitute for Blue background, white text in Word 2010

[jmt356]

As you probably know, Blue background, white text was removed as a feature in Word 2010 (and I believe 2007). That is sad news for people who did a lot of Word processing and found the darker background much gentler on the eyes (and on the battery) than bright white.

I am looking for a substitute for Blue background, white text in Word 2010. So far, all I have been able to find is manually setting the Page color of each document I work on to dark blue. This is quite time-consuming, and requires me to undo the setting before printing. Moreover, there are times when I want to turn on or off the dark blue background for all of my documents, globally. This could be done with Blue background, white text in Word 2003, but currently, one must go through each document individually. Moreover, if I set a document's page color to dark blue and then open up a new window of that document, the new window displays the file as having a white page color, unless otherwise set manually.

Is there any way to resurrect Blue background, white text in Word 2010, perhaps through a Macro or some little-known secret?

By the way, I set the Page color of Normal.dot to dark blue, but that setting does not carry over to my new documents.

[HansV]

You could set the Window color in the Personal Settings control panel to use blue background, white text. This will affect ALL Windows applications, though.

[StuartR]

You could write a VBA macro that toggles the page color, you could store the current value in the registry so that it affects all documents and remains valid when you close and reopen word

[jmt356]

Hans, I don't see Personal Settings in the control panel. I see Personalization, and that has an option to Change the color of your window borders and taskbar. Is that what you mean?

Stuart, would it be possible to suggest macro language?

Thank you both

[Rudi]

Hi,

You can use the macro below. Just copy it from the code window and paste it as instructed:

Open Word
Press ALT+F11 (to open the VB Editor)
In the VB editor, select Normal in the project window (top left of editor. Press CTRL+R is it is not visible)
With Normal selected, go to the insert menu and click Module (to insert a new module)
Paste the code below into this module
Click the Save button in the VBE toolbar

To use the macro in Word, switch to the View ribbon, and click Macros, View Macros.
Select the macro called ToggleBGBlue and click run.

This macro will toggle the background between blue and white each time you run it.

I have done basic tests to ensure it runs on various docs and it worked well in my tests. Just test it on your side to see if it runs fine too.

Code: Select all

Sub ToggleBGBlue()
    
    If ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 51, 102) Then
        ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(255, 255, 255)
        ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Visible = msoTrue
        ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Solid
        ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.DisplayBackgrounds = True
    Else
        ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 51, 102)
        ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Visible = msoTrue
        ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Solid
        ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.DisplayBackgrounds = True
    End If
    
End Sub

[HansV]

Hans, I don't see Personal Settings in the control panel. I see Personalization, and that has an option to Change the color of your window borders and taskbar. Is that what you mean?

Yes. I don't know about Windows 8, but in Windows 7 there is an option to set the window color.

[Rudi]

Hi,

Sadly, the Advanced Appearance settings dialog is removed in Windows 8. To get the effect using this method, you will either need to use a Windows Theme with the applicable prescribed colour settings, or you could customize one of the default high contrast themes that windows 8 provides. (I have not browsed for options, but there could be a third party app that will provide further tweaking that the UI of win8 lacks.)

[HansV]

Microsoft seems bent on removing features recently...

[Rudi]

I have changed the theme colours on my PC to colours I like and compliment, but now I have this issue that the active window Title Text is black on a dark blue bar, and there is no way to change the text colour to white or something more "contrasty", barring the switch to a high contrast theme. It is a very disappointing removal and only they would know what the reasons were for such action.

2013-06-23_13h08_08.jpg

On a positive note; I am enjoying Win8 though :)

[kdock]

I don't think you need to toggle the b.g. color back to white unless you have printing set to print background. If the page is dark enough, the font should automatically display in white.

When you view the doc in print preview is the b.g. white and the font black? It should print correctly.

Kim

[jmt356]

Thank you Rudi. The Macro worked as intended.

Kdock: I think you are right, but the printing issue was just an example of many others that make setting the page color of each page to dark blue inadequate.

[Rudi]

Great to know...

[jmt356]

The only problem with Rudi's macro is that it only makes background blue in documents that are already open. Is it possible to program a macro such that all current and future windows opened will have a blue background until I toggle the function off?

[HansV]

Activate the Visual Basic Editor (Alt+F11).
Click on Normal in the project explorer (the treeview on the left).
Select Insert | Module or press Alt+I, M.
Copy the following code into the new module:

Code: Select all

Sub AutoNew()
    ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 51, 102)
    ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Visible = msoTrue
    ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Solid
    ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.DisplayBackgrounds = True
End Sub

Sub AutoOpen()
    ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 51, 102)
    ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Visible = msoTrue
    ActiveDocument.Background.Fill.Solid
    ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.DisplayBackgrounds = True
End Sub

Close the Visual Basic Editor (Alt+F4).
From now on, all documents that you create or open will have a blue background. You can use Rudi's macro to toggle a document to white background.

[jmt356]

Thank you. This now appears to be working. However, I just noticed something and I am not sure if it is related to the above or if my observing it only after implementing the above is by coincidence. Word 2010 is now asking whether I want to save my documents when I try to close them, even if I have made no changes after opening them. Is there any relationship with the above?

[HansV]

Yes - changing the background color counts as a change to the document. If you want to avoid this, insert the following line into both macros, above the line End Sub:

Code: Select all

    ActiveDocument.Saved = True

You'll still get the prompt if you make any changes to the document, of course.

[jmt356]

Do I insert that into Rudi's macro and your macro? If in your macro, do I paste it in twice, before both instances of "End Sub"?

[Rudi]

You can put that statement into all the macros (above the end sub).

Just not though that Hans's macros will explicitly change the background to blue (without user interaction) where my macro will allow the user to choose if they want the background blue. If you use all three macros, Hans's will change the background on Open or New, but then you can use mine to remove the blue background if you prefer that individual doc to be white...

[jmt356]

When I was opening a document (or Word), I got an error that said something like "Sub or folder not defined." The same error appeared when I opened a macro to try to edit it. I then restarted Word and now all my macros are gone.

[Rudi]

Make sure you follow the steps as indicated in the posts above.
Insert a new module into the Normal Project
Paste the code into that module
Use the save button on the toolbar to save the code
Close and open Word and add a new document or open existing doc.

It works fine for me...

2013-06-29_11h33_06.jpg