Look and feel change in Office 2007

I find where Microsoft hides the look and feel change of Outlook 2007! If you don't want to read all the next bla-bla you can skip until the instructions block and find how to do the change.

But first thing, first...

Since its introduction I like using Windows XP look and feel except one problem – the blue default color scheme. It was just too colorful for me and I started immediately to look for alternatives. No, Windows platform is a given in my place, no alternatives here. I looked for a neutral and still modern look for my working station. Surprisingly quick enough I was found just everything I asked for: Silver scheme was there from the beginning and simple configuration via Control Panel > Display > Appearance > Color Scheme – is almost everything I change from the default installation (except maybe the annoying task grouping…)

Screen shot of the Windows XP Silver Color Scheme

Years, this setting was sufficient until our IT decided to upgrade to Office 2007. Of course, I liked the opportunity to play with the new toy and also I heard before about the enormous effort invested in the usability of that version. On the other hand, I'm heavy Office user these days and basically without my corporate e-mail and Word I can cover very little of my work responsibilities. After a week or two of struggle I decided that the adaptation is unavoidable and I have to learn to use this Office sooner or letter and better is sooner. With almost religious trust in the IT guys I started the upgrade and today after several months I think this was good decision. Better productivity, nice environment, sexy look. Sexy look, hmmm… well, no, not perfect.

One again the default color scheme! I don't know how Microsoft make these defaults, maybe they use psychologist advice for targeting some special group or segment? For my taste, and I see it also in some others, these colorful fancy themes sweet more a teenager then a corporate user. Make it nice, but make it less clamorous. The focus of user should be on the presented content and not on the fames, buttons, icons and other UI controls surrounding and embedded in the content.

But, no worry, I know the solution, right? Well, this is true, but unfortunately the first program from the Office 2007 I started to use was Outlook. Yes, the Outlook default color scheme was blue so I've opened the Options tab and started to look for the place where I'll be able to change it to something more acceptable. After endless overview of all the tabs and sub-options and advice settings and again and again I failed to find it! RTFM attempt, search the help didn't bring the desired result either.

Then it's just hit me: what if I check for the Word options? What if this will affect all the Office programs? I don't know how this idea reached my mind, I don't know how this idea reached the mind of Microsoft engineers, but here is the result of my research:

INSTRUCTIONS:

To change the color scheme of all Office 2007 programs you can open Word file > Office Button > Word Options > Popular Tab > Color Scheme. This change will affect also color scheme of Outlook. I'm advising to choose 'Silver' which looks very nice with XP silver color scheme.

Screen shot of the Office 2007 Silver Color Scheme