In case you don’t know, Microsoft Word has a dark mode. The problem is that a large part of the screen – especially the big old page you’re writing on – remains white even after enabling the feature. For reference, this is the current appearance of the ‘dark’ mode in Word:
You have a big piece of white looking right at you. But as noted by Paul Thurrott, Microsoft is currently testing a full dark mode that actually turns the page from white to dark gray and makes the text black to white (the feature is currently limited to Office Insiders). The colors remain the same overall hue, but “will be changed to accommodate the new color contrast” and “silence the overall color palette effect and look more visually pleasing with the new dark background”.
It looks like this:
To activate dark mode, simply go to File> Options> General> Personalize and select ‘Black’ from the ‘Office Theme’ menu.
No, this does not mean that your pages will be printed in the dark; the feature serves only as an aesthetic tool during writing. To preview how the page will look when printed or shared, you can simply tap the ‘Switch modes’ button on the ‘View’ menu. The interface will remain in dark mode, but you will now see the page as it would print.
If you like the dark UI, but prefer to keep a blank page, go to File> Options> General> Personalize and tap ‘Disable dark’ next to ‘Office Theme’.
It is a welcome option. Having a big white rectangle shining light on you kind of defeats the purpose of many dark mode users.
Some people use dark mode purely for aesthetic reasons, and may not care that the page you are writing on remains white, as long as the interface is white. Others use dark mode to reduce screen brightness due to light sensitivity or to minimize blue light before bed. Personally, I only use it because I find the dark mode easier on the eyes and less distracting at night.
Unfortunately, the feature is currently available only to Beta testers subscribed to the Microsoft Insider channel. While the feature is likely to make its way to stable Word builds – OneNote’s dark mode works the same way – there is no telling when exactly this can happen.
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Published February 10, 2021 – 12:48 UTC