Microsoft Word 2007 text selection is stuck on black.

[Kevin]

So I've had this problem for a while and seen a lot of posts across
the internet about this problem but no solutions. My Word 2007 had the
typical light blue selection for a long time, but out of nowhere it
switched to pure black. Since the selection color is linked to the
windows theme, I tried changing the selection color but that did not
fix it.

I scoured the registry keys for office and nothing really caught my
eye. Since this is a corporate machine, I really don't want to go
through the process of uninstalling and reinstalling just to see if it
fixes it. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this annoying bug?

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

I did once find the mechanism for changing "shading" color (IIRC
Windows calls it "highlighting," even though that means something
different in Word); it was somewhere in Windows (not Word) and
affected all programs. But I don't remember where it was, and it was
probably in Vista rather than 7, so this is probably not helpful.

 

[Kevin]

Peter, thank you for your response. I believe what you're talking
about is the system selection color in windows it is called "Selected
Items". This is on an XP machine and to be fair I have done a fair
amount of modifications on it, but this problem just came out of
nowhere. The day it happened, nothing was installed or changed on the
system.

I have seen a lot of these threads and am going to try to keep this
alive to get a resolution on this.

 

[Stefan Blom]

I believe Word/Office ignores a lot of the options that are customizable in Windows. Selection/highlight color is one of those options.

Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I was going to say the same thing. Word/Office has always been a law unto
itself.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Lisa Wilke-Thissen]

Hi Kevin,

"Kevin" wrote

My Word 2007 had the typical light blue selection for a
long time, but out of nowhere it switched to pure black.

please check your Windows settings. Sometimes enabling the High
Contrast option will be a problem
(http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Turn-on-High-Contrast-and-change-the-settings).

 

[Kevin]

Lisa,

That was a brilliant idea, unfortunately it was not the problem (but
it seems like that might be a problem for others). I am nearing a
point of a reinstall, but I would really like to avoid that (since I'd
have to deal with corporate IT and down time).

To elaborate a little more on the situation as well:

This is not only effecting word, it is actually all of office. On
outlook, the highlight color when I click on a message is correct (to
the windows theme), but when I highlight text in the actual body it
does the pure black highlight.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Office ignores the Windows theme settings. As far as I know, there is nothing you can do about it. Reinstalling certainly won't help.

Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP



"Kevin" wrote in message
Lisa,

That was a brilliant idea, unfortunately it was not the problem (but
it seems like that might be a problem for others). I am nearing a
point of a reinstall, but I would really like to avoid that (since I'd
have to deal with corporate IT and down time).

To elaborate a little more on the situation as well:

This is not only effecting word, it is actually all of office. On
outlook, the highlight color when I click on a message is correct (to
the windows theme), but when I highlight text in the actual body it
does the pure black highlight.