cannot get out of mystery dark mode post OS update

Question

Users have recently updated to windows 11, and some are now reporting office365 apps such as word or excel appear to have permanently entered some bizarre form of dark mode (black page background). However, in the obvious places (word > options > general > office theme) and (windows settings > personalisation > colours > windows mode / default app mode), there is nothing obvious that is triggering this mystery dark/black mode issue, and also other users with the exact same settings in these areas are not stuck in this dark mode)!?

Are there any other obvious locations/settings/features to check in office, specific office apps or windows 11 that may be producing such symptoms? I am not sure if its possible to unintentionally trigger a dark mode using a key combination. But this does appear to have coincided with the Windows 11 update (could be unconnected though). Themes seem to affect the colour background of the app and menu structure, not the actual content of the documents themselves so I am not totally sure it is an office theme related issue personally.

Answer 1

Hi Crib,

Possibly related:"

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/microsoft-word-inverted-page-colours/d17fbaa4-59d5-44f7-a3a1-ba13f15ba739

This (white text on black background) is the result of a recent feature release. To remove it, do ONE of the following:

• In File > Options > General or in File > Account, change the Office Theme setting from Black to one of the other choices.
• If you want to keep the black background on the ribbon and around the outside of the page but keep the page itself black text on white background, click to place a check mark in the box for "Disable dark mode" in File > Options > General.
• If you want to keep the black background in all parts of the program but you sometimes want to see the page with black text on white background, go to the View ribbon and click the Switch Modes button. (This button is visible only while the Black Theme is selected.)

Additionally, you can change the Page color from the design page:

I hope this helps.