Word 2007 Highlighting Color Too Pale

G

George Jetsam

I'm a new user of Word 2007 (on XP) and my eyesight isn't too great. The
color used for highlighting selected text is all but invisible and I'd like
to be able to adjust it to something more dramatic--a brighter color or
inverse/negative effect.

I've tried changing the theme within Word, and I've tried changing the
highlighting color through the "Appearance" (Advanced) control panel, and
these have no effect on Word 2007's highlight color. Any advice much
appreciated.
 
G

Gordon Bentley-Mix at news.microsoft.com

Pam,

I think George is talking about the _selection_ highlighting - that is, the
colour that's applied to content when it's selected using the mouse or
Shift/Ctrl+an Arrow key, etc.

I can understand your complaint George; I think the selection highlighting
in Word 2007 is a bit too dim myself, and my eyesight is actually pretty
good. However, I don't know if there's any way to change it, and I don't have
access to my Word 2007 machine at the moment to investigate. I'll check later
today and post back if I find anything.
--
Cheers!

Gordon Bentley-Mix
Word MVP

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup.

Read the original version of this post in the Office Discussion Groups - no
membership required!
 
G

George Jetsam

Yes, Pam has it right. I'm just talking about the color Word applies over
selected text to indicate it has been selected. When editing documents of any
complexity, it's nearly impossible to tell what is selected before performing
an edit. If the contrast or intensity o that color could be changed, it would
make things a lot easier.
 
G

George Jetsam

HA! I should read more carefully, too. GORDON is right. PAM is mistaken in
her understanding of my question. It's just the color Word uses to indicate
selected text that I'm looking to change.
 
G

George Jetsam

Yow! Some of those settings will knock your eye out!

Really, though, I have no problem with the selection colors for, say,
NotePad or WordPad, just the absurdly light default settings on Word. I
suppose I could switch back and forth if I have to, but if there's some way
to just make the selection highlight visible in Word, I could do without the
high-contrast settings.
 
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I had this same problem and finally solved it!

  • Right click on your desktop
  • Select 'Properties'
  • Go to the 'Appearance' tab
  • Select 'Advanced'
  • In the 'Item' drop down menu, select 'Selected Items'
  • To the right of the 'Item' menu (not the font window) Change your 'Color 1' drop down menu choose your color preference.
 
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GORDON DOESN'T KNOW BASICS - HERE's a SOLUTION!

Gordon, you know me from Vista forum? You don't know **** about complex computer issues, and yet you have courage to play with me?

Here's a solution to that problem, and please next time make room for professionals if you don't know solutions, words are cheap, here's a real solution:

See KBarticle# 927479 - it also works for MSWord2007:
Edit Registry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Options Add a new DWORD or modify this keyword if already exists:
" NoTranslucentSelection" = 1 (in other words ENABLE it)

Done!
 
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Person who claimed he solved problem is MISTAKEN

I posted a solution by modifyign Registry.
Whoever wrote about changing Desktop appearance, doesn't know what the heck we're talking about!!
READ CAREFULLY - MS WORD2007 SELECTED TEXT BACKGROUND COLOR IS NOT AFECTED by WINDOWS SYSTEM-WIDE COLOR SETTINGS.

Get it?
No go modify registry as I said and your MSWord2007 selected text will now have brighter/contrasting color.

Easy solution, which works, instead of empty words.
 
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Hi all, I am a newbie on this forum.

I came across this posting due to a similar problem on the Word 2007 highlight selection issue as described here.

When I select text for further processing,(resulting in highlighting), the text being selected is not all highlighted consistently. Some sections stays un-highlighted although it will work perfectly. Scrolling up and down past the top and bottom of the screen may result in a "fix" of the missing parts. As I have said, it works fine. No problems with copy, setting bold etc, or any formatting of the selected text. It seems to be a cosmetic thing but it is awkward to work like this. This occurrence is totally random. It never happened in XP but 90% of the times in Win 7.

My setup:
Laptop with i3 and 4GB RAM, ample disc space, and Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 and updated.
Office 2007 SP2 updated to latest.

Any ideas on this irregularity?
 
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HarryN, I found your post when googling for this same issue. I ended up posting a question on the microsoft forums and they recommended updating my display drivers (from the manufacturer website). I didn't expect it to help, but it did! I hope you got your issue resolved already, and that this might help the next googler.
 

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