Edit

Fresh style icon guidelines for Office Add-ins

  • Article

The Office 2013+ (perpetual) versions of Office use Microsoft's Fresh style iconography. If you would prefer that your icons match the Monoline style of Microsoft 365, see Monoline style icon guidelines for Office Add-ins.

Office Fresh visual style

The Fresh icons include only essential communicative elements. Non-essential elements including perspective, gradients, and light source are removed. The simplified icons support faster parsing of commands and controls. Follow this style to best fit with Office perpetual clients.

Best practices

Follow these guidelines when you create your icons.

Do Don't
Keep visuals simple and clear, focusing on the key elements of the communication. Don't use artifacts that make your icon look messy.
Use the Office icon language to represent behaviors or concepts. Don't repurpose Fabric Core glyphs for add-in commands in the Office app ribbon or contextual menus. Fabric Core icons are stylistically different and won't match.
Reuse common Office visual metaphors such as paintbrush for format or magnifying glass for find. Don't reuse visual metaphors for different commands. Using the same icon for different behaviors and concepts can cause confusion.
Redraw your icons to make them small or larger. Take the time to redraw cutouts, corners, and rounded edges to maximize line clarity. Don't resize your icons by shrinking or enlarging in size. This can lead to poor visual quality and unclear actions. Complex icons created at a larger size may lose clarity if resized to be smaller without redraw.
Use a white fill for accessibility. Most objects in your icons will require a white background to be legible across Office UI themes and in high-contrast modes.  Avoid relying on your logo or brand to communicate what an add-in command does. Brand marks aren't always recognizable at smaller icon sizes and when modifiers are applied. Brand marks often conflict with Office app ribbon icon styles, and can compete for user attention in a saturated environment.
Use the PNG format with a transparent background. None.
Avoid localizable content in your icons, including typographic characters, indications of paragraph rags, and question marks. None.

Icon size recommendations and requirements

Office desktop icons are bitmap images. Different sizes will render depending on the user's DPI setting and touch mode. Include all eight supported sizes to create the best experience in all supported resolutions and contexts. The following are the supported sizes - three are required.

  • 16 px (Required)
  • 20 px
  • 24 px
  • 32 px (Required)
  • 40 px
  • 48 px
  • 64 px (Recommended, best for Mac)
  • 80 px (Required)

Important

For an image that is your add-in's representative icon, see Create effective listings in AppSource and within Office for size and other requirements.

Make sure to redraw your icons for each size rather than shrink them to fit.

Illustration of the recommendation to redraw icons per size rather than shrink icons. For example, you may need to use fewer elements in a small icon rather than just scaling down a bigger image.

Icon anatomy and layout

Office icons are typically comprised of a base element with action and conceptual modifiers overlaid. Action modifiers represent concepts such as add, open, new, or close. Conceptual modifiers represent status, alteration, or a description of the icon.

To create commands that align with the Office UI, follow layout guidelines for the base element and modifiers. This ensures that your commands look professional and that your customers will trust your add-in. If you make exceptions to these guidelines, do so intentionally.

The following image shows the layout of base elements and modifiers in an Office icon.

An icon base element in the center with a modifier on the lower right and an action modifier on the upper left.

  • Center base elements in the pixel frame with empty padding all around.
  • Place action modifiers on the top left.
  • Place conceptual modifiers on the bottom right.
  • Limit the number of elements in your icons. At 32 px, limit the number of modifiers to a maximum of two. At 16 px, limit the number of modifiers to one.

Base element padding

Place base elements consistently across sizes. If base elements can't be centered in the frame, align them to the top left, leaving the extra pixels on the bottom right. For best results, apply the padding guidelines listed in the table in the following section.

Modifiers

All modifiers should have a 1 px transparent cutout between each element, including the background. Elements shouldn't directly overlap. Create whitespace between rules and edges. Modifiers can vary slightly in size, but use these dimensions as a starting point.

Icon size Padding around base element Modifier size
16 px 0 9 px
20 px 1px 10 px
24 px 1px 12 px
32 px 2px 14 px
40 px 2px 20 px
48 px 3px 22 px
64 px 5px 29 px
80 px 5px 38 px

Icon colors

Note

These color guidelines are for ribbon icons used in Add-in commands. These icons are not rendered with Fluent UI and the color palette is different from the palette described at Microsoft UI Fabric | Colors | Shared.

Office icons have a limited color palette. Use the colors listed in the following table to guarantee seamless integration with the Office UI. Apply the following guidelines to the use of color.

  • Use color to communicate meaning rather than for embellishment. It should highlight or emphasize an action, status, or an element that explicitly differentiates the mark.
  • If possible, use only one additional color beyond gray. Limit additional colors to two at the most.
  • Colors should have a consistent appearance in all icon sizes. Office icons have slightly different color palettes for different icon sizes. 16 px and smaller icons are slightly darker and more vibrant than 32 px and larger icons. Without these subtle adjustments, colors appear to vary across sizes.
Color name RGB Hex Color Category
Text Gray (80) 80, 80, 80 #505050 Gray 80 color for text. Text
Text Gray (95) 95, 95, 95 #5F5F5F Gray 95 color for text. Text
Text Gray (105) 105, 105, 105 #696969 Gray 105 color for text. Text
Dark Gray 32 128, 128, 128 #808080 Dark gray color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Medium Gray 32 158, 158, 158 #9E9E9E Medium gray color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Light Gray ALL 179, 179, 179 #B3B3B3 Light gray color for all image sizes. All sizes
Dark Gray 16 114, 114, 114 #727272 Dark gray color for 16 px and smaller. 16 px and below
Medium Gray 16 144, 144, 144 #909090 Medium gray color for 16 px and smaller. 16 and below
Blue 32 77, 130, 184 #4d82B8 Blue color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Blue 16 74, 125, 177 #4A7DB1 Blue color for 16 px and smaller. 16 px and below
Yellow ALL 234, 194, 130 #EAC282 Yellow color for all image sizes. All sizes
Orange 32 231, 142, 70 #E78E46 Orange color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Orange 16 227, 142, 70 #E3751C Orange color for 16 px and smaller. 16 px and below
Pink ALL 230, 132, 151 #E68497 Pink color for all image sizes. All sizes
Green 32 118, 167, 151 #76A797 Green color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Green 16 104, 164, 144 #68A490 Green color for 16 px and smaller. 16 px and below
Red 32 216, 99, 68 #D86344 Red color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Red 16 214, 85, 50 #D65532 Red color for 16 px and smaller. 16 px and below
Purple 32 152, 104, 185 #9868B9 Purple color for 32 px and larger. 32 px and above
Purple 16 137, 89, 171 #8959AB Purple color for 16 px and smaller. 16 px and below

Icons in high contrast modes

Office icons are designed to render well in high contrast modes. Foreground elements are well differentiated from backgrounds to maximize legibility and enable recoloring. In high contrast modes, Office will recolor any pixel of your icon with a red, green, or blue value less than 190 to full black. All other pixels will be white. In other words, each RGB channel is assessed where 0-189 values are black and 190-255 values are white. Other high-contrast themes recolor using the same 190 value threshold but with different rules. For example, the high-contrast white theme will recolor all pixels greater than 190 opaque but all other pixels as transparent. Apply the following guidelines to maximize legibility in high-contrast settings.

  • Aim to differentiate foreground and background elements along the 190 value threshold.
  • Follow Office icon visual styles.
  • Use colors from our icon palette.
  • Avoid the use of gradients.
  • Avoid large blocks of color with similar values.

See also