Changing color palette

MS has moved that feature.

Go to Page Layout tab > Themes group (first one).

In there you can change colors 2 ways.  One is by picking a new color "theme" (but I don't see a black and white, or greyscale option).  The other is by picking a new option from the "colors" drop down. There is a greyscale one there.  You can hover your mouse pointer over the options in both of those drop downs to preview the effect on your document.

This themes feature is key to MS's "view" of all of Office applications as part of a unified "Office Suite of applications".   The theme is shared by all office applications.  The idea is you pick a theme (or custom build one) then use that same theme in all of your corporate Office documents.  The theme consistently applies preselected colors to various elements in your various document types.  If you use the themes attributes then you can pick another theme and all associated colors will automatically change to the new theme colors.

When you go into any color picker, the drop down now shows a scale of "Theme colors" with various shades. Below that are the old "standard" colors blocks.

I can provide more links to detailed articles about how MS wants us to use themes in our documents.

It's a long story.  The short answer is yes and I am very relieved after some stressful hours.

I was working for a few hours on one of my workbooks. I hadn't saved my changes. I wanted to delete a text entry that appeared on 52 of the sheets in the same cell, so I highlighted the sheets and clicked on the relevant cell. The result was that I deleted all 52 sheets. I hoped I could find them in the trash folder, but no such luck.

In the end, I went back to an earlier version of the workbook. I had to change it from xls to xlsx. I was getting an error message which said, "can't copy and paste because the number of rows and columns are not the same in both workbooks." 

After converting from xls to xlsx, I was able to copy and paste. Now I need to do some editing, but I think I'm OK. paul

So, did you get the color you were looking for?

Happy reading

Behind the Scenes with Document Themes

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=800

by Stephanie Krieger

So, you’re using the 2007 Microsoft Office release and you’re already using Themes in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You know that themes provide fonts, colors, and graphic effects to your documents in all three programs, as well as slide master, layout, and background formatting in PowerPoint. But, what really goes into the details of a theme?

If you’re ready to dig deeper into themes, this article can help. Here, you can explore how the components of a theme fit together, what settings are used to determine various formatting gallery entries (such as Shape Style or SmartArt Styles), and what you need to know to create a complete custom theme for yourself.

Apply, customize, and save a document theme in 2010 Word or Excel

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/apply-customize-and-save-a-document-theme-in-word-or-excel-HA010354866.aspx#\_Toc261352312

You can give a professional look to a document by applying a document theme. A theme is a set of formatting choices that include a set of theme colors, a set of theme fonts (including heading and body text fonts), and a set of theme effects (including lines and fill effects).

Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint provide many built-in document themes, but you can also create your own by customizing and then saving a document theme. Document themes are shared across Office programs so that all your Office documents can have the same, uniform look. However, unlike Word and Excel, PowerPoint includes background style customization options. For information about how to add and customize backgrounds, see **Apply a background picture, color, or watermark to your slides**

It Always Matches in Office 2007 – Using Themes

http://www.worldstart.com/it-always-matches-in-office-2007/

Were you a fan of the custom clipart colors in the older versions of MS PowerPoint?

You were able to create exactly what you needed and you could always choose to copy and paste it into one of the other Office programs. It could be a bit of a pain though, since only PowerPoint could do the recolor work on the clipart.

Themes: Changing the colors and fonts of your document

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2006/12/01/themes-changing-the-colors-and-fonts-of-your-document.aspx

Colours in Word 2007

http://www.wordarticles.com/Articles/Colours/2007.php

Colours in Word 2007, Part 1

http://web.archive.org/web/20080723180429/http://proofficedev.com/blog/2007/08/21/colours-in-word-2007-part-1/

Posted by Tony Jollans (Microsoft MVP for Word) on August 21st, 2007

Introduction

Not specifically a new feature, changes to colours have come about with the introduction of a new Themes feature common to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and working with them in VBA requires a bit more knowledge than in the past. In this, the first of two posts based on a longer piece I am writing, I examine Color properties, particularly, but not exclusively, of the Font object; the second part will continue this examination as well as looking at ColorFormat objects for those objects that have them.

Colours in Word 2007, Part 2

http://web.archive.org/web/20080928142729/http://proofficedev.com/blog/2007/10/10/colours-in-word-2007-part-2/

Behind The Curtain: Styles, Doc Defaults, Style Sets, And Themes

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2008/10/28/behind-the-curtain-styles-doc-defaults-style-sets-and-themes.aspx

by **Word Team**                  on October 28

Building off of my **last Behind the Curtain post**, this post will dig into the "other 20%" and specifically answer the following three questions on Styles:

·     How do Document Defaults relate to the Normal Style?

·     How do **Style Sets** relate to Styles?

·     How do **Themes** relate to Styles?

We've got a lot to cover, so let's jump right in.

Using Themes, How Styles Change

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2011/08/23/using-themes-how-styles-change.aspx

Every Word 2010 document has a Theme. If you haven’t actually chosen a Theme, then you’re probably using the default – Office. To see the Theme applied to your document, click on the Page Layout tab, and then click the Themes button.

Restrict or permit formatting changes

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/restrict-or-permit-formatting-changes-HA010372712.aspx#BM1

When you distribute a document for other users to edit and you don't want them to change the look of the document, you can restrict all or some themes and styles that can otherwise be changed or applied. You can also enable reviewers to change some themes and styles.

Thank you very much for your explanation!

I would like to read more and would appreciate your providing the links you mentioned.   paul alpert