Hi Suzanne,
To add a bit to Carol's reply, in the term of Windows color schemes 'automatic' is seen as a 'color'.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140752/en-us?FR=1
If just the 'windows text' appearance color setting is changed (i.e. not a whole theme) then the color of text you see in Word
dialog text also changes, as does, for example the text color you type in for plain text in Outlook Express.
What you mentioned is also correct, that Word 'watches' for dark on dark or light on light and uses the 'automatic' setting to try
to create inverted selections automatically, although it doesn't always guess right, and then you get the 'vanishing text' issues
such as this one
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/825770/en-us?FR=1
Then again folks can still format text to match or 'hide' in a similarly colored page background.
Word's 'white text - blue background' option can really confuse things, as it too 'sets' the automatic color to white (but only in
Word) and overrides the Windows setting. For folks who think that this Word Option setting goes along with the document when they
send it to someone else, there are often some surprises there too<g>.
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For the first problem, see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/WhiteSpace.htm
As for the second, you mean that, when you click the arrow at the side of
the Font Color button to display the font color palette, the square at the
top labeled Automatic is blue? I've never seen such a thing. Does the Font
dialog show the same thing? The purpose of the Automatic selection is
basically to be black by default and automatically switch to white if you
use a dark background (shading).